Alternative Salvation
by merlinmercury
Summary: Sam just wants to get away from his reputation as That Guy Whose Girlfriend Died in a Fire. Lucifer is an unfulfilled artist who wants Sam as his muse. A story about finding new ways forward.
1. New Fires & Old Burns

Sam sits in the grass on the outskirts of campus. It's an out-of-the-way spot behind a building, littered with the odd cigarette butt but otherwise showing no signs of being frequented by anyone. Since the accident, since Jess, it's one of Sam's preferred places to be; he can bring his books for pre-law out here, do his readings and not have to deal with the constant hollow condolences, pitying looks or whispered gossip from anyone who recognises him as That Guy Whose Girlfriend Died in a Fire. These days, he's happy when he finds someone who's willing to tease him or tell him when he's being an idiot.

He misses that about Dean, not that anything's changed between them since Sam left home, his dad and his brother behind. He sends the odd cautious email, gets the odd guarded response. Dean'll be serving overseas soon, and Sam won't be surprised if he doesn't hear from him at all while he's away.

Sam's been sitting in the grass for about half an hour when he notices someone leaning up against the brick wall a few yards away. A blond-haired man, five or so years older than him at a guess, screws a finished cigarette into a patch of dirt with his the heel of his boot, his hands already busy lighting another. Sam hadn't see or hear the man arrive, but a change in the breeze has begun blowing smoke in his direction. It reminds him of his friends and their awkwardly executed, tacit agreement not to smoke around him. Smoke; fire; Jess. In reality, cigarette smoke has always reminded him more of the time John gave a fifteen-year-old Dean a split lip when he found a pack of Marlboros in his room. I didn't raise you so that you could throw your life away like that, for nothing, he'd 's not a pleasant memory, but Sam's never expected anyone to tiptoe around it before, never told anyone about any of it because he doesn't want to be treated differently.

As the smoke wafts towards him, he breathes it in deep and thinks about how John can't do a thing about it.

He steals a longer glance at the blond man. He's wearing a loose t-shirt with something indecipherable printed on the front—a band logo, Sam would bet. His arms are tattooed, mostly in black and white ink with occasional hints of red. His eyes are fixed intently on the ground in front of him, and Sam thinks he looks sad—the deep, continuous kind of sad that comes from never being understood, not even by yourself.

Or maybe he's projecting.

Yeah, he has to be projecting.

Sam goes back to his reading, and by the time he looks up again a chapter later, the man is gone.

A week later, Sam is brainstorming an essay in his usual hideout when the blond guy appears again. He takes his place up against the wall, this time a little closer to where Sam sits in the grass. He lights another cigarette, shuts his eyes as he takes the first pull and sighs it out. Sam can see his whole body relax a little. It feels like he's intruding on a private moment, somehow, but the man's eyes open again before he can look away.

The man raises an eyebrow. "Want one?" he holds the box of cigarettes out, offering. His tone is easy and his voice surprisingly soft.

"Oh, uh, no thanks," Sam says quickly. Much as he's loath to agree with John, he's pretty sure smoking's not worth it. It's sure as hell not because he owes his father anything, though.

"Alright then."

A minute or so passes in silence, before Sam gives up trying to concentrate on his essay.

"What brings you to this corner of the university?" he asks.

The man raises an eyebrow. "Partly, a search for inspiration. And partly the fact that people are pieces of shit," he says. The bluntness takes Sam by surprise. It's refreshing, hearing someone speak as though they don't care if their words rub him the wrong way.

Sam huffs out a tiny laugh. "Fair enough. What do I call you, then?"

The man takes a few steps closer, sits on the ground beside him. "Lucifer," he says between puffs of smoke.

"That's really your name?"

"No, but I prefer it."

Sam nods. "Okay then. I'm Sam."

"Sam," Lucifer repeats. "And what brings you here, Sam?"

"People can be crappy," he answers, feels a smile twitching at one corner of his mouth.

They sit for almost another hour but neither says anything; Lucifer smokes, Sam begins drafting a few paragraphs and the afternoon grows older around them.

Lucifer says "Bye, Sam," when he leaves, but that's all.

Sam feels oddly as though they've spoken more than they actually have.

It's the third time they meet that breaks the pattern. They're not in their private spot away from the hustle and bustle of the university, but rather in a small gallery nearby.

Sam likes to go and see art, the same way he likes to watch documentaries of all kinds, and read whatever books he can get his hands on, provided he has time. He's never considered himself much of an artist, but he sometimes wishes he was—wishes he could channel everything he felt into an abstract flurry of colours and textures, or shade it delicately into the faces of a picture's subjects. These days, he feels so damn much he doesn't know what on earth to do with it. He's hovering somewhere between numbness and completely falling apart, so he mostly lets the numbness do its thing and distracts himself with work.

Today, he's finished all the work he has to do, so he's after another distraction.

The exhibition is by a local artist, something to do with flowers from around the world. He wanders through the white-washed rooms, grateful for the way they seem to transport him away from the world outside.

He's standing in front of an oil painting of a waratah when a voice speaks from over his shoulder, right up close behind his ear.

"The execution is good, but the subject matter feels so lifeless."

The voice is soft and smooth, and he knows instantly exactly where he's heard it before.

"Lucifer," he acknowledges, without turning away from the painting on the wall. He stares at it, loses focus on the flowery shapes and all of it merges into a blob of red before his eyes. Everything around him is dimmed, except that point close by in the room where he knows Lucifer is standing.

"Sam," Lucifer says. "It's good to see you."

"What are you doing here?" asks Sam.

The back of his neck prickles at Lucifer's quiet chuckle.

"I make it my business to visit local exhibitions, being in the art business myself," he answers.

"You're an artist?" Sam asks, surprised, and finally turns around to face Lucifer.

Lucifer nods, a small grin flitting over his features. He looks much the same in here as he did when they were sitting out in the grass, only he seems to stand out more against the plain surfaces of the gallery. The tattoos on his arms, the rough shadows of his stubble and the tattered parts of his clothes all look like they could be framed and mounted. A rough sketch can be a masterpiece if you put it under glass on a clean wall, and in that same way Lucifer looks entirely different in here. In here, Sam's eyes are drawn to the details of him, each one piquing his curiosity.

"And you, Sam?" says Lucifer, moving a few steps away to the next painting on the wall, a bright branch of jacaranda. Sam goes with him, his eyes falling briefly upon the purple blooms before returning to the more interesting subject.

"I'm not an artist or anything—I can draw stick figures but that's about it—I just enjoy looking at it, reading about it."

Lucifer seems to consider something for a moment, before speaking—"How about being in an artwork? Have you ever considered that?"

No, Sam hasn't. He tells Lucifer as much, somewhat confused as to why he's being asked. Maybe in Lucifer's artistic circles people are always posing for one another, or taking each other's photographs to use for inspiration, but nobody Sam's ever met has been into that sort of thing, as far as he's aware.

"Shame," Lucifer tilts his head to the side. His eyes wander up and down Sam's body, and he's wearing jeans and three layers on top but in that moment it feels like much less. "Would you consider it?"

Sam's not really sure, but he answers in the affirmative because... well, it's probably because he wants Lucifer to like him. He wants Lucifer to like him more than he's cared about a virtual stranger's opinion in a long time.

"Think some more about it," Lucifer offers. He pulls a pen from the pocket of his jeans, and then he's leaning forward and grasping Sam's hand. The touch is warm and rough and if Sam's focus had been narrowed before, now it's like he's looking through a microscope. The only things presently occurring to him are the points where Lucifer's fingers meet his skin, rubbing lightly over his wrist, and the scraping of the pen over the back of his hand.

By the time Lucifer is done, Sam's mouth is a little dry. On his hand is printed a string of digits in crisp black ink.

"Call me if the answer's yes. I'd like to paint you, Sam."

With that, Lucifer turns and strolls back out of the art gallery, leaving Sam to watch him go and try to process what's just happened.

He'd come here for a distraction, and he'd found it—just not hanging on the gallery walls.

Sam puts the number in his phone before it can be smudged or smeared into illegibility, but he doesn't call or message it until four days later. Each of these days, he's spent his free time sitting in his usual place. It's still better than the library or any of the main seating areas, but it doesn't feel exactly how it used to; there's a tension in the air like he's waiting for someone else to arrive, which definitely hadn't been around before, when the very reason he came here was to get away from absolutely everyone.

Despite the anticipation, however, that someone else never does show.

Eventually, Sam takes out his cell.

I'm thinking of saying yes, he types out, then backspaces quickly. He doesn't know Lucifer, regardless of the weird connection he feels when he's around the guy, the weird interest that he has in him, that they seem to have in one another. He is thinking of taking the artist up on his offer, but he's pretty sure that making gut decisions in relation to a person whose voice nudges you unnervingly close to a shudder, and whose presence scrambles your gut is the definition of clouded judgement. If Sam's going to have a hope of justifying this to himself, he's going to need to put in just a tiny bit of research first.

What kind of art do you do? he writes instead, and presses send.

It's only about five minutes before he receives the reply:

I do all kinds of things. Why not let me show you sometime?

To that, Sam does say an easy yes.

He pulls up outside the address Lucifer gives him and finds himself looking in at a large, expensive-looking house with shuttered-off windows and a front door of black metal twisted into intricate patterns. A tangle of rose bushes and vines sprawls over everything on either side of a brick path, which leads up to said front door. The place comes across as just as enigmatic as Lucifer himself, just as indistinctly broken.

Sam weaves between the thorny stalks until he arrives at the door. There are only the remnants of a doorbell, a broken plastic shell and twisted wires, so he pulls open the wiry door and raps his knuckles on the wooden one behind it.

He is answered swiftly, but not by Lucifer.

"Hey there, you must be Sam." A woman stands before him, leaning casually against the doorframe. She has dark hair falling over her shoulders, a wide face and a wicked grin.

"Uh, yeah that's me," Sam answers, a little anxiously. The woman is standing just too close for comfort, drinking him in so intently and unabashedly it makes him feel like squirming. "I'm sorry, is Lucifer here?"

"Yeah, of course," the woman says, and steps back, gesturing for Sam to come in. "I'm Meg, by the way."

Meg leads him down a hallway with a high ceiling and a roll of patterned carpet lining the floor. Sam thinks the carpet looks dark green, with designs in black and white, but every surface he lays eyes on looks like it hasn't been touched, let alone cleaned, in years. As they walk, the walls open out into more rooms on either side. To his left, a grand piano stands, white in colour but blanketed with grey dust. To his right, a dining table and cabinets filled with glassware and china sit in a similar state.

"We don't usually use this part of the house," Meg explains. "You can come round the back in future."

Part of Sam wants to argue that he's still not sure there will be future visits, but the part that would rather not threaten that wins out.

After passing by several other sizeable and equally abandoned-looking rooms, they arrive in a kitchen area.

The first thing Sam notices is Lucifer, sitting at a small table with his feet kicked up and crossed on a second chair out in front of him. He's focused on a drawing pad, but he looks up when he hears Sam arrive.

The second thing Sam notices is the huge painting on the wall behind him. It stretches from the floor to the ceiling, the different patches of colour spreading out horizontally to either end of the room as well. The composition seems somewhat haphazard, a range of different shapes and figures clustered in separate scenes. Some of them are particularly light or dark, some of them more detailed and precise while others are notably expressionistic. It looks as though each frame of the huge painted mass is a different diary entry.

"Awesome, isn't it?" Meg says with a grin, and Sam realises he's been staring just a little. "Lucifer here is a genius," she sighs, and when Sam turns to look at her he sees that her eyes too are fixed intently on the chaotic fresco.

"It's messy, is what it is," Lucifer snorts, getting up from his seat and walking towards Sam. "Hello," he says, and Meg's right there but in this moment, pinned down by Lucifer's attention, it feels like Sam is the focus of the whole world, the only one there that matters.

"It is kind of amazing," Sam says quietly, because it is. His eyes are caught by two—well, almost two—figures in the centre, set down in broad brushstrokes he can see the lines of from where he's standing. The strokes converge into the requisite lights and shadows to form the shape of a partial body, its neck and arms torn open and away, and a larger figure which grips the remaining torso and legs in its fist, raises the headless corpse to its waiting mouth. Sam recognises the layout.

"It's after Goya, right?" he gestures to that section of the wall. "Like Saturn Devouring His Son."

Lucifer looks pleased, shows it in the subtle twitch of one eyebrow and one corner of his mouth.

"I see you are familiar with at least one true master of art," he commends. "Though this version is not intended as Saturn, but the Christian god—a theme my name has no doubt already indicated my interest in exploring."

Looking again at the picture, Sam can see that the differences between it and the original work do indeed add up to the different interpretation that Lucifer describes. The portrayal of God, he thinks, calls out to his memories of flicking through books about classical sculptures and Renaissance art. God extends an arm, like he does for Adam on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, but in Lucifer's painting he reaches out not merely to touch his creation but to entrap and destroy.

Sam likes it, appreciates the clever brutality of the references, the wordlessly articulate blasphemy that stretches out so plainly in front of him, more than he can find the language to explain.

This being the case, he simply nods in understanding and waits for Lucifer to show some indication of what's to happen next.

"You should show him the cradle, Lucifer," Meg suggests.

Lucifer seems to consider this, then nods once, though to Sam he seems unconvinced. "Perhaps you should lead the tour," he tells her.

Meg positively lights up. "If you want," she shrugs, but her smile fails altogether at casual.

Sam falls into step behind her as she takes off towards a door in the far corner of the kitchen area. Lucifer follows along behind him, and Sam's not sure whether he can feel himself being watched from behind, or whether it's mostly his imagination. Whatever the case may be, being around Lucifer is not getting any less distracting.

The cradle, it turns out, is an installation piece. It's kept in its own small room, which is easily done since spare rooms are something this house appears to have in abundance. When Meg switches on the light it looks just like a baby's nursery, albeit an extremely spartan one. The cradle is a white-painted cot with wooden bars and white sheets for sides, and an infant's mobile hanging overhead. There's a funny dark stain on the mattress, and something plasticky on the floor beneath the cot, but Sam can't guess the function of either one. The only other piece of furniture in the room is a nondescript end table, upon which a baby monitor sits.

"Can I start her up?" Meg looks to Lucifer, and Lucifer nods again, that same single dip of his chin.

The first thing that happens is the monitor flares to life, flashing red and emitting the sound of a baby crying. It's eerie as hell, considering that to Sam's knowledge there's definitely no baby around.

The next thing that happens is the stain on the mattress grows darker, seems to swell, and then drips. Like a fountain of deep red blood, it runs through the bars and down the edge of the bed to the floor. The flash of plastic Sam had seen before looks to be a tray, catching the stream.

"It's all about the death of innocence," Meg is gushing.

"A simplistic statement," Lucifer murmurs under his breath. "Little more than a feat of elaborate plumbing."

Sam watches the bloody liquid running, listens to the ghostly child screaming in the baby monitor, and thinks that he's starting to get a feel for Lucifer's style. It's disturbing, and kind of awful, and not necessarily the type of thing Sam would usually favour... but he's completely intrigued by it, by what it might hint about the man who stands beside him, and the odd nonchalance, almost bashfulness, that he seems to exhibit while Meg sings his praises.

Besides, Sam thinks, the types of things he would usually favour are what's been wearing him down lately. The one thing that hasn't changed, though—that won't change—is his desire to know more, and that desire pulls him half a step closer to Lucifer's creepy cot setup for a closer look, and half a step closer to saying yes to whatever he asks.

Sam's mind is full as he returns home from his visit to Lucifer's. He mulls over the different things he's seen, the way the house's walls are made up with art, most of them like the pages of some apocalyptic text. Descending into depression towards the end of his life, Francisco Goya had painted his demons on the walls of his residence in much the same way, and Sam doesn't know what walking through Goya's place would be like, but walking through Lucifer's had felt like no house and no art gallery he's been in—strange, for something which should so easily be considered a combination of both.

He thinks about what it might mean to be used in Lucifer's art; where will he fit in? Will he be placed in the likes of Lucifer's Saturn painting, slipped in somewhere between Michelangelo and Goya? Sam's not an artist, but he thinks that even if he were he'd probably still find it hard to imagine.

He texts Lucifer, even though he saw him not three hours ago.

You say you want to paint me. What kind of painting would you want me for?

Lucifer replies with, I thought I might start with a simple portrait.

Given this, Sam imagines that maybe it won't all be jumping into complicated scenes he doesn't fully understand. Maybe there'll be more slow going than that, more working together. It's an idea he finds he likes the sound of. He can't know just from guessing, but he can go and find out.

He simply sends back: Okay. It's an important okay.

Sam's going back to Lucifer's in two days, and Lucifer is going to paint a portrait of him.

In the meantime he goes about his business as usual, or at least as it has been since Jess died. He crashes on Brady's couch, works on a research assignment, sleeps poorly and not nearly enough. Everything has felt numb for a while really, partially disconnected like a dream he's going to wake from soon, in his bed beside his girlfriend in their apartment—but now there's a sharp point amongst it, something to look towards, a mark to steady himself by. He hasn't felt this kind of anticipation since he started seriously considering the possibility of proposing to Jess—and that comparison, if nothing else, should tell Sam that he's probably getting himself into trouble here.

Just because he gets that memo, though, doesn't mean he's going to heed it.

The two day mark rolls around, and Sam's got a couple of classes in the morning but they pass in the same quick blur as usual.

"What's gotten into you, man?" Brady had asked him that morning, as they both sat around eating cereal. "You seem... I dunno, better, this past week or so."

Sam recognises this as the point at which his friend would, before Jess was around, have accused him of being up to trouble with some chick. That comment never comes, though, nor will it until Jess is a thing of the distant past. He gets why anyone would be keen to rein in that sort of remark around him at the moment, but the fact that he already knows how the conversation should have gone, has had it in his head by himself, just ends up making him feel more alien to the world around him.

Now, as he drives the fifteen or so minutes to get to Lucifer's, he turns the radio up a little louder and lets it wash over him. The song that's playing is an AC/DC track, loud and crude and catchy the way Dean always liked. It reminds him of what the past several years have been—one big chain of escape hatches and distractions, each building upon the last, reaching right back to Dean and Dad—who, in turn, did everything with the aim of distracting themselves from the tragedy of Mary's death. He'd gone to college with the purpose of finding purpose, and now here he was, the simple, clear-cut drive or the easy sense of belonging that he'd dreamed of having been wrenched away again almost as soon as he'd managed to secure it.

By the time he reaches his destination, he's glad to be out of the cramped vehicle, and his own head, for a while.

Remembering what Meg had said about not using the front door, Sam pokes around the side of the yard, finding a concrete path that leads him down the side of the house. He hears splashing water, and when the side path opens up into back yard, he can see the source—a lap pool surrounded by tiling. There's someone in there, a girl in a small black swimsuit. At first Sam thinks it might be Meg, but this girl looks different—narrower and sharper in both face and body.

Sam can see where the back door to the house is, but he can't really get there without passing closer to the pool. He feels suddenly awkward about the whole thing; maybe he should just have gone through the front like last time.

There's definitely a minute or so where he's not paying attention, because the next thing he knows, he's being pushed up against the brick walling of the house, something pressing against his throat.

The girl, not-Meg, is glaring at him, pressing the net end of the pool-cleaning stick into him like it's a knife.

"What do you want?" she says, voice hard, and Sam flails just a little.

"Here to see Lucifer," he gets out, all in a rush. "He's painting a portrait."

The net is immediately withdrawn.

"Oh. So you're Sam, then? Nice. I approve." The girl comes closer, doesn't stop until she's trailing a finger over Sam's jaw.

Sam twitches.

"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Ruby," she says, and then she's turning and wandering back toward the pool, slim hips swaying.

Okay, then.

Sam heads for the door. He wonders how many people live in this house, and which of them could be the most unnerving.

"It's open, come on in," Meg's voice calls from inside, just as Sam's about to knock.

Meg is sprawled across a couch watching TV. Sam doesn't recognise the show, but he can hear screams and all manner of wet shredding sounds coming from the speakers. He spares the screen a glance, and sure enough, a bunch of people are standing in the middle of a room, knives in their hands, blood and gruesome chunks stuck to everything in sight.

"I see you met my sister," Meg says brightly, switching the television off and standing up. "She can be... intense."

"Yeah," Sam breathes a small laugh.

"She's a little messed up at the moment," Meg explains. "Her girlfriend Lil died about a month ago, so Ruby crashes here sometimes. Anyhow, she knows you now so she shouldn't bother you again."

"I'm, ah, sorry," Sam says. "About her girlfriend. I can relate, actually."

It's out before he can remind himself that part of what he likes about being here, strange abode that it is, is that nobody here knows about what happened to Jess, therefore nobody handles him with kid gloves or shoves sympathetic cotton-wool in his ears when the conversations get even slightly real.

Meg just raises an eyebrow, though, and says slowly "sorry about that, then," before she's moving on into the next room and beckoning for Sam to come along.

"He's waiting for you in there," she stops outside one of the many doors in a long corridor Sam hadn't been down during his first visit, gestures to it, then turns on her heel and leaves him alone.

Before Sam can go about properly second guessing himself, Lucifer's voice calls out calmly, "Come in." The sound nudges him across the threshold, reignites the curiosity that's brought him here.

The room has plain walls, and is furnished with nothing but a few chairs, a long table covered in an array of paint tubes and messy palettes, and a pair of wooden easels. One whole wall consists of windows, through which the natural light pours in and brightens everything. The light at present is the pale clarity of an overcast day.

Lucifer sits on one of the chairs, an easel standing before him. He's wearing the same tattered jeans as he has been every time Sam's seen him, but today he's wearing an old greyish singlet, tight fitting despite the elastic evidently being gone in places, spots and smudges of paint layering over one another in an assortment of colours. Sam notes the way the points of his nipples show through the thin fabric, then tries to mentally screw up and throw away that note when he realises what he's thinking.

"Hi Sam," Lucifer says easily. "Have a seat."

Sam plants himself in the chair that Lucifer indicates. He wipes his palms on the thighs of his trousers after finding them sweaty.

"So, how does this all happen?" he asks.

"Well, it's quite simple: you sit, I paint. If you'd like, we can speak. If you'd rather not, that's also fine."

"Talking sounds good to me." Sam isn't sure he could bear sitting in silence for very long even if he wasn't interested in the possibilities of conversation.

Lucifer throws him a slight smile. "I'm glad. I want to know more about you, Sam."

"Me too—about you, I mean. We could trade questions?"

"Certainly. I'll go first: why haven't you been sleeping?"

The question prods at Sam in the most unexpected way. "Huh?" he stutters slightly before recollecting himself. "Um. What makes you think I'm not sleeping?"

"I know the look, knew it the first moment I met you. It's all tied up in the shapes of your face, the ones I'm sketching right now. The hollows under your eyes—and the hollows in the eyes themselves. I ask because I'd like to know what brings my subject to be composed the way he is."

Sam feels fidgety, but not so uncomfortable he wants to leave. He's wanted someone to point out the hard parts, the rough bits, to not shy away from them, and Lucifer describes them with such ease, just the right blend of cool concern and detachment, that he feels like this is something he can actually answer.

"Nightmares," he says, like he hasn't said to anybody before now.

Lucifer nods, puts down the graphite pencil he's been drawing with and begins squeezing paints out onto the already-colourful surface of the table at his elbow. He puts out bright red, mixes in a smaller quantity of burnt umber brown and a tiny hint of blue to dull it down.

The he picks up a wide, flat brush, drags the tip through the mixture and says, "Nightmares about what?" like it matters, but not in a way that's going to scare him away. Sam thinks of Lucifer's cradle artwork, the graphic scenes depicted on the walls, and thinks maybe Lucifer has worked up his own tolerance to nightmares.

"My girlfriend. Her name was Jess, we lived together in an apartment just near the university. I was out late one night and when I came back I found the place on fire. Electrical problems, people have said—not that it matters, not that it changes the most important parts. I could see that smoke was coming from our window when I turned into the street. I ran up the stairs and everything inside was just burning, it was hot like hell and impossible to breathe, and all I saw of Jess before the firemen dragged me back out was a limp body lying on the bed. So that's what I dream about, when I sleep. It's not exactly brilliant motivation to curl up on the couch and try at all."

Lucifer is quiet for a minute. It feels to Sam like a thoughtful silence. His gaze switches between Sam and the canvas mounted on his easel. Sam stays as still as he can. It's surprisingly easy, actually, just to sit there and quietly be, like he'd done by himself in his private study spot before Lucifer had come along.

Finally, Lucifer asks, "The couch?"

Sam almost laughs, it's so low on his list of expected follow-up questions.

"My buddy Brady's couch. Obviously I can't sleep in my own bed, since it's a pile of ash now."

"There are a number of spare bedrooms in this house. You're more than welcome to take one if you ever find yourself in need."

"Um, thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

"Your turn."

"What?"

Lucifer doesn't look away from his canvas as he reiterates, "It's your turn. To ask a question."

Oh, right. "Okay—what's the story with this huge house, anyway? Whose is it?"

"Meg's. Her parents up and left for Australia after her brother was killed in a drive-by shooting. Meg was midway through art school and refused to go with them. Ruby also refused, not wanting to leave Lilith behind. Mr. Azazel and his wife were wealthy enough to start over without selling the house, and also keen enough to escape as quickly as possible without the fuss of a sale. As for how I came to be here, I had left home—been forced from home... I had nothing, and Meg found me scraping chalk drawings onto the sidewalk beside where I was sleeping. She told me she thought I was brilliant, said she had too many spare rooms in her house and without any friends to fill them the place felt lonely as hell. So I came to stay here—and here I continue to be."

It's so honest that Sam almost aches, imagining the scenes Lucifer's hinted at and trying to enforce some order upon all the fresh questions that have been raised in his mind. Firstly, why had Lucifer had to leave his home?

It isn't his turn to ask again, though, and Lucifer's shared enough for one go.

Sam just nods, a small sharp gesture that takes his head back into position almost as soon as he moves. Lucifer keeps painting.

"It's your turn to ask again," Sam reminds him.

Lucifer seems to fall into another brief, thinking silence. Takes a clear bottle marked POISON from the table, pours a measure of the clear liquid inside into a plastic jar and proceeds to rinse the dark bloody red shade from his brush. Sam deduces that the paints he's using must be oils, if he's washing up with turps.

"What are your family like?" Lucifer asks.

It's a question that Sam has never once answered with complete honesty; not while he was in school as a kid, not since he's been at Stanford. And yet, he feels the truth rising in his throat before he can reason it back down. Lucifer's own confession has already set the tone, established a weight in the air of this room that makes telling him anything feel perfectly possible—makes it seem like he won't be judged because nobody here has a sufficiently functional yardstick of normal against which to measure whatever comes out of his mouth.

For the first time in longer than he can remember, Sam sets about finding the right words, the real words, to describe his father, his brother, their life.

"Controlling," he begins. "Stifling. Or my Dad always was, at least. Ex-marine, wanted nothing more than for me and my brother to follow in those footsteps. My brother, Dean, he mostly put up with it. Did everything Dad told him to, went and joined the army. He's being sent off to Iraq any day now, as a matter of fact.

"Me, I wasn't so keen on the whole thing. Dad was... my Mom died when I was a baby—house fire. The Coroner found that there was strong evidence to suggest the fire was deliberately lit, but nobody was ever charged. Dad never really got over it. He was hardened, always tried to do things with military precision as though speaking in twenty-four hour time would make life run more smoothly. Then when things didn't go his way he'd drink, or drive off and leave Dean and me in some motel room for days at a time, or worse, take it out on us.

"I wanted to come here to Stanford, to study law and live a normal life, but that didn't match up too well with Dad's idea of what I should do. There was... conflict. I left, came here even though it meant him telling me never to come back. And so," he echoes Lucifer's phrasing, "here I continue to be."

Now that he's emptied it all out, Sam sits and waits, just a little anxiously, for a response.

"Could you tilt your head back up?" is the one he gets, and as Lucifer says it Sam realises he's staring down at his hands where they're resting in his lap, at his feet where they meet the floor, anywhere that lets him avoid eye contact.

He does as he's asked, but when he raises his head the look on Lucifer's face is as serene as ever, as the artist continues dipping brushes in paint—a dark blue-grey shade, now. It doesn't feel like he's being dismissed, like Lucifer hasn't been listening to what he's said—it's more like he's taking it all in, building it into a mental picture of Sam the same way he's building a physical one with the oils and the canvas before him. Figuring out what Sam is made of before he makes a judgment.

Sam appreciates that. He appreciates it a lot.

When Lucifer doesn't say anything more for a while, Sam asks another question.

"Why did you have to leave—" he breaks off immediately, unsure. Lucifer throws him an inquiring glance, so he explains, "uh, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to ask about."

Lucifer smiles, a gentle expression that almost looks like it hurts. "You can ask me anything, Sam, and I won't lie to you. You just have to be sure you want to hear the answer."

"Okay," Sam resolves. "Why did you have to leave your home?"

"I'm gay," Lucifer says simply. "That was the clincher, I'd say, though it wasn't all. My father could be described in many of the same terms as you use to describe yours, though it was religious order to which he clung when my mother left him. My brothers and I, we were all to study for a profession—something that would keep us in a suit and tie each day. My older brother Michael was happy to oblige—business career, modestly-dressed nuclear family, house in the suburbs, a spot on the catering roster for church services; the whole conservative shebang. One of my younger brothers, Raphael, is in his first year of an accounting degree. The other, Gabriel, went away to college across the country and told the whole family not to write.

"I did write to him, though; Gabriel had a sense of humour, a rebellious streak. We understood each other. I... missed him. I knew that he'd experimented in all kinds of ways father would disapprove of, and he knew that I wasn't able to adhere to our father's plan. I called him one day and told him I was going to confess everything—that I wanted to go to art school instead of business college, to tattoo my arms and go to rock gigs instead of bible study, and most of all that I was never going to marry any of the nice, respectable young girls from our local church and settle down behind a white picket fence. Gabriel begged me not to go through with it. He told me he couldn't afford to stick his neck out for me if it came to that.

"Perhaps I should have listened to him; Gabriel kept his exploits secret and stayed in his classes and accommodation on my father's dime—but if there is one thing I abhor it is dishonesty. I refused to be dishonest with my family, and with myself.

"It came to a head when I discovered that my father had invited a young woman to join our family for dinner with the intention of setting us up. Her name was Eva, Eva Adams. She was twenty and I was twenty-three; by twenty-three Michael and his wife had already had their first son. My father's implications were clear. Eva was... the precise opposite of everything I find attractive. After she had gone I told my father as much, told him that this was something I would never be able to do for him.

"The things he said don't bear repeating, but suffice it to say I was cut off from the family, and the family finances. I packed a bag and Michael drove me to the bus station. He offered me a wad of cash, but refused to say a single word."

Sam can hear gritted teeth in Lucifer's tone, but he doesn't stop, doesn't exhibit much else in the way of emotion. Sam's familiar with that trick—numbing things, letting anger stay at a simmer, grinding through and then pretending it's easy. All the years before he'd escaped to Stanford he'd either been doing it himself or watching as Dean did.

He doesn't know what to say to any of it—it's clearly too much to risk making an offhand comment about—so he follows Lucifer's example and merely nods in acknowledgement, adds the new information to his mental portrait of Lucifer.

They continue their question and answer deal until Sam looks at his watch and sees how many hours have passed.

The painting isn't done yet, Lucifer tells him, but it should be ready soon. Sam comes over to stand by the easel and looks. The small canvas is covered thickly with reds, browns, blue-blacks. Most of the colours are dark and muted, but patches of white light and flecks of crimson sneak through the blended layers. Sam's face looks... resolute. There's anger there, he thinks as he examines it—anger and more than a little sadness. It reminds him more of how he feels than how he's ever seen himself looking.

"Thank you for today, Sam," Lucifer says, and places a hand on Sam's shoulder. It trails a little way down his arm as it slips away.

Sam swallows. "Yeah, it was good," he says, finds he isn't lying. "So, when should I come back?"


	2. Beyond Reasonable Guilt

The first time Sam stays the night at Lucifer's is about three weeks after their first painting session. He tells Brady that he's staying with a friend—and even though he can practically hear the guy's eyebrows rising over the phone, Brady doesn't ask any prying questions.

Sam's staying over because, thanks to the combination of an intense bout of criminology assessment and the poor back support with which Brady's couch rewarded him whenever he did shut his eyes, he's sleep deprived and aching all over. He had turned up in the middle of the afternoon as they'd planned, but Lucifer had taken one look at him standing there on the doorstep and immediately led him to a spare bedroom. Sam had collapsed and blacked out almost instantly. When he'd awoken, it had been dark outside.

After ending his call to Brady, Sam gets up and ventures outside the room. The invitation to stay over has been reiterated enough times over the past several visits that he's comfortable presuming it still stands—all the same, he'd like to confirm it.

It's also occurring to him that he's really, really hungry.

The last time he ate... well, he'd shoved the last of a bag of potato chips down his throat earlier this morning, reaching into the greasy packet to grab them with one hand while he made the online submission for his last assignment with the other. Chip crumbs didn't really count as food, though, whatever Dean may have tried to teach him when they were growing up.

He's halfway through planning a takeout run when he's almost bowled over by a delicious smell. He follows the scent into the kitchen area and finds Meg bending over to remove baking trays from a roaring oven.

"Cookies?" Sam inquires, the words sounding rather more hopeful than he means them to.

"You bet," says Meg. "Give it five minutes and you're welcome to have at 'em."

Sam grins. He's grown to like Meg. She's loud and sharp and gives the distinct impression that her attention, like her respect, must be earned. It gratifies him all the more, then, that she seems to like him in return. There's also her cookies, and Sam doesn't want to sound like he's only befriending Meg for the baked goods, but he can't deny that they are absolutely sinful.

"You look like shit," Meg declares, swinging herself up to perch on the kitchen bench beside the tray of cooling biscuits.

"Mhm," Sam agrees, wiping at the remaining bleariness in his eyes. "Not much of a painting model tonight I'm afraid."

"Bull," Meg says lightly. "Great art isn't about being pretty. Aesthetics are important, sure, but you only need to take a look at the walls of this room to see that good art is much more about embodying some sort of power, some sort of meaning, than looking attractive. Picasso didn't exactly paint pinups, Sam. Neither did Francis Bacon. Or Francisco Goya. And that's before you even begin to consider movements like abstract expressionism."

Sometimes it slips Sam's mind that Meg is the one, out of this house's residents, who's actually been through art school. She never fails to remind him with her easy, almost lazy discussion of artists and theory.

"You're easily as interesting when you're completely worn out," Meg continues. "Lucifer just isn't interested in making you suffer, is all. And on that note, you look starved, too. What can I getcha?—and don't say cookies. Cookies are for dessert only."

"I was thinking I might just go and pick something up—" Sam starts, but Meg's already hopping down from the bench and opening the refrigerator.

"Don't be an idiot. We've got all kinds of crap in here—chicken, leftover from yesterday, a heap of salad stuff."

Sam has learned better than to contradict Meg when she's deciding something. Politely refusing won't necessarily be taken as polite, so he thanks her and offers to help as she slices up tomatoes and avocadoes and tosses them into a large patterned bowl.

"Nope," she shoots him a quick glare, "stay the hell out of my kitchen, Winchester."

Looking more closely at the bowl, Sam realises that the patterning is actually faces, creepy ones that appear to be twisted in anguish.

"Nice bowl," he says, and it's sort of a question.

"One of my own designs," Meg replies. "Made it for a ceramics class in my second year. Didn't do so well in that one—teacher and I were at each other's throats pretty constantly—but I did genuinely love getting to make the projects. Sculptures are my favourite—edible ones included. Decorating cakes, that kind of thing. I worked in a bakery for a while, but I got sick of icing the same Happy Birthday crap all the time. Even the occasional wedding cakes got boring."

"Sam, you're awake." Lucifer's voice filters through the air, and both Sam and Meg glance up to see him lounging in the far doorway.

"Yeah—actually I was hoping I could crash here tonight, if that's still okay?"

Lucifer looks surprised, though not in a bad way. "Of course it is," he says.

"Great," Sam thanks him, but then Meg is handing over the bowl of salad and a fork, and Sam loses himself momentarily in the taste and crunch ofactual fresh food for the first time in days.

The rest of the evening passes with surprising ease and companionability. Lucifer doesn't bring up the prospect of continuing his most recent study of Sam. Instead, they join Meg on the sofa with beers and cookies and lazily watch whatever's on TV. There's a satirical news show of some sort, a political documentary, a tedious double episode of a procedural cop show Sam still doesn't know the name of even after the two hours are up, and something called Doctor Sexy M.D. which seems to be equal parts medical practice and making out in elevators, and which has Meg laughing her head off.

By the time they all stumble off to bed in the wee hours of the morning, Sam's wondering why on earth he hasn't stayed over before.

He's woken a couple of hours later by a shout. It's coming from the room next to his—Lucifer's room. At first he can't make out any words in the garbled cries, but then he hears a "Stop! No!" The sound of Lucifer's voice is completely different to his usual smooth tone—it's shrill and desperate and broken like he's being split apart.

A few minutes of this is all Sam can stand before he's on his feet and moving out into the corridor. He pushes Lucifer's door open, sees the man curled in his bed, quiet whining noises occasionally interrupted by more of the louder sounds.

"Lucifer," Sam says, putting a hand down over the sweaty forehead the way he'd done sometimes when Dean was having a particularly rough night. He says Lucifer's name again, more insistently, nudges him in an attempt to rouse him.

"Michael," Lucifer whispers. "Michael, please—"

One final push and Lucifer is awake, eyes opening and fixing on Sam. Initial confusion turns to a hurt sort of anger.

"Go back to bed, Sam," Lucifer grunts, shifting away from the grasp Sam's hand has on his shoulder. "What, you thought you were the only one with nightmares? Get out."

Even half-asleep, Sam's got enough of an idea of when to be persistent and when he's plainly unwelcome to turn and slink, just a touch dejectedly, back to his room.

The few naps he's had over the course of the evening make it difficult to get back to sleep, so Sam takes to looking through the contents of the room. It's mostly bare, with just a small writing desk and an empty bookshelf. On the desk he finds several loose sheets of paper, a couple of pens and a lead pencil. They make him wish that he had the requisite artistic talent to put the frustration he's feeling into some kind of picture. He knows he has other skills—he's doing well in his college classes, and is even beginning to let himself place some faith in his chances of scoring a scholarship—but with the blank page before him he feels distinctly like the untalented one in the building. He picks up the pencil, presses the sharpened tip against the page and carves hard, dark lines into the clean white surface, scratches and scrubs in formless sections of different greys. It doesn't look like much, and it doesn't really mean anything, but it's at least slightly cathartic.

The breakfast table isn't as tense as Sam's half expecting it to be. This is largely due to the fact that Lucifer isn't there.

"He goes running in the mornings," Meg explains through a mouthful of cereal, before Sam can even ask after Lucifer's whereabouts. "He'll probably be back in another forty or so minutes."

Sam nods, pours a bowl of corn flakes for himself, and the two of them eat in silence.

"So," Meg speaks again a while later as she's washing up her bowl. "Are you gonna be staying over more often now?"

Sam hasn't really thought about it. The incident with Lucifer aside, he'd had a much better night of sleep than he can remember getting in the months he spent couch surfing and crashing in people's dorm rooms. He thinks maybe he'd like to borrow that nice, springy mattress again.

"I might," he shrugs.

"You should. It's been forever since Lucifer took an interest in anything much. And I've never seen him as interested in anyone as he is in you." Meg throws in a wink, but her tone stays serious. "I think you're a good guy, Sam," she says, "but I have to warn you: if you mess him around, I not hesitate to make your life a living hell."

Sam is getting the distinct impression that there's more going on here than he's been aware of. What Meg thinks he and Lucifer are to one another, he isn't sure—it's an idea, though, that leads Sam himself to wonder a little about that. He and Lucifer have spoken about things more intimate than he's ever shared with anyone, and Sam still can't say for sure why that's okay, but it is. He thinks Lucifer understands the troubles he's had easily enough without having to dig further in to every statement, and Sam can empathise an awful lot with Lucifer without having to prod or pry too much either. So, they work well together in at least that sense.

Then there's the part where Sam, well, he notices Lucifer. Notices the way his lips curl around the end of a brush when he's considering his next stroke, and the flexing of the muscles under the inked skin of his arms. When he's painting Sam, Lucifer spends a lot of time looking at him; contemplating, memorising. Sam wonders whether maybe, while he's doing that, he notices Sam in the same way.

Sam's never found himself drawn to men before, found them attractive in more than an objective way, but he's never been opposed to the possibility of it either. The only thing that bothers him about this is that he has no idea how, or even whether he should go about acting on it after seeing just one shard of the volatility he senses lies beneath that generally unruffled surface of Lucifer's.

He resolves just to wait and see what happens next.

What happens next is Lucifer tells Sam that he has a proposition for him. He's figured it out, he says—figured out how he wants to paint Sam.

On this particular day, Sam has spent the morning writing notes on all manner of criminal cases. It's heavy going, not just because of the judicial writing style but also the content; he's read about a man who beat his wife and son repeatedly, a priest who assaulted over twenty young boys over a period of forty years, a rapist who tied up and urinated on his victims, a man who deliberately drove his truck through the wall of a crowded restaurant. That people could possibly do these things to fellow humans is hard enough to stomach, but it's the sentences that are bugging him most of all. These people, relentless abusers and violent humiliators, can permanently scar and ruin and take away altogether the lives of other people and be given five years, ten years, thirty years—any punishment is inadequate for a mass murderer with only one life of his own to serve in penance, and yet one such man in one of the cases Sam had read had been given a term short enough to ensure he'd walk free one day. This case was from three decades ago. The man, who had ended six innocent lives, was now eligible for parole.

People can change, they can reform, and Sam gets that—but they can also stay just as menacing as ever. One of the paedophile priests, apparently showing remorse, had been dealt with more leniently—but as far as Sam's concerned, after reading in excruciating detail the descriptions of every inappropriate comment and twisted trust play and pornographic film and incident of indecency or aggravated sexual assault, after reading about the things said by parents who disowned their children for having the courage to tell them these secrets, each bit of betrayal suffered by far too many victims over the course of far too many decades... as far as Sam's concerned the priest's only remorse is for the fact he was caught.

He was given just ten years on appeal, which was double what he initially received.

Sam doesn't know how judges can do it, passing these kinds of sentences and then giving the green light for paedophiles and killers to walk free once they're up.

He doesn't know how he'd cope if the person who'd set fire to his family's old home and his mother along with it was caught and then allowed to pay in just a handful of years when Mary had lost every remaining one of hers.

The sentence that arsonist laid on Mary and her family, their time will never truly be done.

When he arrives at Lucifer's, he's still all angry fumes.

When he resumes his place in the chair where he's been sitting for a charcoal study, Sam is all jitters, gritted teeth and hand-clenching. Lucifer doesn't ask him to relax, just inquires as to what's going through his mind.

"There's so much anger in you, Sam. All those layers of it—it's inspiring, really; part of why you are my muse. I've been wondering how I should portray you, your anger and sadness an ambition and all the rest of you, but now I see that it's been the most obvious thing all along."

So Lucifer says he has a proposition.

"I want to paint you as Lucifer," he says to Sam. "A new version of the fallen archangel. It'll be our masterpiece."

Sam still isn't sure about the Lucifer thing. He's not the devil; he's tried his damnedest not to be every day of his life. He supposes that Lucifer-his-friend isn't exactly like the devil either, assuming that the devil is all things evil. He's enigmatic and misunderstood, bitter and broken in places... and, well, maybe the character of the Morningstar is those things too?

If he's honest with himself, Sam's questioning this as hard as he is because he knows the idea of playing Satan is likely to require the dredging up of the bits of himself he's spent years tamping down or reining in. Anger, for instance. Sam's anger has never run its course without casualties—whole family ties, at its worst.

Speaking of which, Sam's checking his mail when he finds two envelopes. These ones look different to his usual bank statements or university letters. The address on the first one is unmistakeably written in Dean's handwriting—and if that makes Sam's breath catch in his throat just a little, the sight of his father's black chicken scratch on the second letter has him choking on anxious surprise.

He thumbs open Dean's letter first. It reads,

Hiya Sammy,

You know I'm not really one for letter-writing, but I just needed to send you something, so bear with me, alright. In case you forgot, I'm out on tour now. Iraq. Being over here, it strips a whole lot of crap away, reminds you what's important. That being the case, I wanted to apologise. Don't think this means you can get away with being a dick—I still hate that you abandoned our family—but I also need you to know that I can forgive you. If by some miracle I make it back from this hell-hole, I want us to try being a family again.

I'm also writing to you because there are some things I could never put into a letter to Dad, you understand. Do you know that I shot a man yesterday? I say man, but he hardly looked like more than a kid. Dad trained us up all our lives for this kind of thing, but I guess there's still nothing that can really prepare you for the feeling of knowing you hurt somebody that bad. Killed someone, a person, somebody's son or brother. The things I'm seeing here, the things I'm doing, Sammy. I'm scared. I just needed to put that into words, just this one time.

Well, this has been the mother of all chick flick moments, hopefully you've enjoyed the show you giant girl. Feel free to write back if you ever take a break from being a total nerd. Not that you have to or anything. Cause I'll see you when I get back, and you can buy me a beer, bitch.

Dean.

Sam reads over the letter a couple of times before pushing it to the back of the small pile in his hands. He moves on to the second letter, falters, then finally tears the top off the envelope.

He sees right away that the letter inside isn't from John, but for him. His father has simply repackaged the letter, forwarding it to Sam.

It's from someone in the military, originally dated about two weeks after the letter from Dean.

Dear Mr. Winchester, it says.

I write to inform you that on December 3rd a group of US soldiers were captured by insurgent forces. Dean Winchester was among them. The US army has been unable to contact or locate any survivors from the captured group. It is therefore with regret that I undertake to notify you that your son is missing in action, presumed dead.

Sam can't breathe.

He can't breathe, he can't—it's cruel, this is—a shot of hope and affection from his brother, followed by this. It's cold, clinical, and his father's silent passing along of the news feels as much as ever like the cold shoulder. With Dean gone—if he's really gone, he can't be gone, can he?—Sam knows that he and John will sure as hell never be a family again. They've lost everything that's ever held them together as one.

Sam doesn't really remember the trip back up to Brady's apartment, but somehow he finds himself there, stripping off his shoes and clothes, each layer suddenly feeling like it's clinging to him too tightly, constricting in an effort to see his lungs collapse in on themselves. He can hear his pulse pounding in his throat, but at the same time he can't be sure his heart is even working. He feels faint.

Sam shoves the letters into his bag to keep them out of sight, and sits himself down on the cold, grimy tiles of Brady's shower with the water running cold.

He doesn't know how long he's there for. It doesn't matter, nothing matters right now, not today, not anymore. The only thing that could make itself matter is some way to bring Dean back home, alive. He vaguely registers the sound of a phone ringing somewhere beyond the bathroom door. The ringtone blares at intervals of he's-not-sure-what, but whoever's calling can wait.

Sam shivers under the freezing shower, thinks about how cold Dean's body would be, lips blue, eyes staring unseeingly. God, he's not even sure how much of Dean there is left, let alone whether he'll ever get to see it, to bury it in person.

He thinks about all the times he could have—should have—called Dean, driven out to see him, emailed or skyped or, hell, sent him a goddamnpostcard, the medium of communication wouldn't have mattered. What matters is Dean is dead, and he died not only on the other side of the world but also of the rift that Sam dug out between them.

He sobs loudly, then he sobs quietly, and then when his tear ducts are utterly spent he just sits with his tailbone pressing painfully into the hard floor and shakes.

Sam doesn't drive himself to Lucifer's. He doesn't drive because he's nicked the bottles of whiskey and Jäger from Brady's liquor cabinet and downed some quantity that's more than he should've but less than he feels like he wants to. So Sam gets a cab. The driver looks like he has a question or two on his tongue, but he evidently thinks better of voicing them. It's a good thing, too, because Sam's honestly not sure how he'd have reacted if the guy had asked.

"Thanks," he says when the taxi pulls up, handing the driver a couple of twenties for his cooperation and then climbing sloppily out the side door.

He stumbles around the side path of the house, only to find Meg's sister—Ruby? Yeah, Ruby, that's right—sitting on a folding chair out in the sun with her swimsuit and sunglasses on, attention fixed on the book she holds in her hand.

"Sam?" she calls out when she sees him.

Sam's not in the mood, though. He ignores her and hopes that she, like the cab driver, will be quiet and leave him be.

It's too bad, though, because Ruby's already putting her book down and walking through the grass towards him.

"Wow, somebody's sure been day drinking," she chuckles, as she pulls him by the arm, or maybe he falls into her a bit, Sam isn't sure. It's hard to see; everything's moving unexpectedly fast, and his eyes are pricking again, apparently having found some more liquid to wring out. He pushes at Ruby's hand where it's gripping his waist, but she simply replaces it and he gives up. There are five stairs leading up to the back door. He could probably use the help.

Somewhere along the way, Sam remembers what Meg had told him about Ruby's girlfriend.

"Hey, 'm sorry about your girlfriend," he slurs, because he is sorry, and his thoughts seem to be coming out his mouth.

Ruby freezes.

"My girlfriend died too," he adds. "First my mom, then Jess, and now m' brother. You probably shouldn' be my friend or you might die 's well." It's a helpful suggestion, he thinks, all things considered. Maybe he's the pattern, maybe the cause of it all is him.

Mercifully, Ruby continues walking him inside without engaging in any conversation.

Sam can hear voices. He's not sure whether they're in his head or not. His head hurts. A lot.

"...boyfriend showed up, completely smashed ... so I dumped him in your room..."

Sam takes in the white ceiling above him, the slight tea-yellow stain showing through in the corner. It's not a ceiling he recognises. His mouth is dry like a desert and completely foul-tasting. His stomach is staging a rowdy protest against its very existence.

"...about three hours ago..."

He can hear now that the voices are coming from outside his door. Well, not his door; the door of the room he's ended up in. He remembers drinking, but he was at Brady's... ah. He remembers getting a cab, too. He's at Lucifer's house, then. This isn't his usual room, but it seems just slightly familiar nonetheless. There's paint on one of the walls, a big slab of black that's been rollered on, like it's covering something up. Before Sam can come to any further conclusions, the door is opening and Lucifer's stepping quietly inside.

"Hello Sam," he says, and Sam's grateful that Lucifer is practically whispering, because his head is not a kind place to be right now. A fresh wave of the realisation that Dean is gone shudders through him and he sinks a little further into the sheets underneath him.

"Sorry," says Sam. He of all people knows that someone turning up hammered on your doorstep is fucking inconvenient. Sam can be an angry drunk on bad days, too, just like his father. He doesn't remember lashing out at anyone earlier today; he just hopes it didn't happen anyway and then slip from his memory.

"No need to apologise," Lucifer sits himself down on the edge of the mattress.

Sam begs to differ. There's always a need to apologise. Like he should have apologised to Dean. Dean, who's—

"I'm going to bring you some aspirin and a glass of water."

Sam feels the bed spring back as Lucifer gets up to leave, the door creak slightly.

Before long, he's returned with water and painkillers which Sam choke down, even though he's not sure they will actually make him feel any better, just block out the physical pain that's half-distracting him from the real hurt. He thanks Lucifer all the same.

"Is there anything else I can get you?"

Sam thinks about all the things he wants at this moment, none of them within reach. Except maybe...

Lucifer's hand smooths through Sam's hair, and it's pacifying, this feeling of being watched over, held even a tiny bit.

"Stay?" he asks. He pats the bed beside him with one arm.

Lucifer doesn't question it, just moves around to the other side of the bed and climbs in.

Sam rolls over onto his side so that he's facing Lucifer. He's aware that his eyes are probably bloodshot and sickly, that he probably looks as utterly like shitty as he feels, but Lucifer just looks back at him. His expression is not without caring, but it is without pity, and pity is the last thing Sam wants. It's not without concern, but it isn't laden with disgust or disappointment.

Both of them here, heads leaning on pillows, eyes on one another, they're close enough that Sam could just stretch his neck out a bit and kiss Lucifer right on the mouth.

So that's what he does.

It's only a soft press of lips. Sam's aware that his breath is probably awful, but kissing Lucifer suddenly seems so easy, so urgently necessary, like it had to happen five minutes ago. The aches and pains are partially obscured by Lucifer's warm breath, the scratch of his stubble.

Lucifer pulls away.

"Sam," he whispers, a little hoarsely, Sam thinks. "Don't do this now."

"Why not?" Sam doesn't see what now has to do with anything; they'll either do this or they won't. He doesn't want to hesitate or put this off any longer—he just wants answers, just wants to be sure that his thoughts and feelings are known. Wait too long and you can lose that chance forever. He's been seeing that all too clearly today.

Lucifer runs a hand over Sam's hair again, and Sam leans in to the touch.

"I said I'd never lie to you, and I won't do so now; I want you, Sam. But I want you when you're in a state to want me back."

Sam's brain mostly stops processing after I want you, because that's his main concern for now. He feels warmer, a glowing sort of warmth, and takes the opportunity to huddle closer to Lucifer. His eyes feel puffy, stingy and sore, his eyelids heavy like he's trying to lift weights with them, so he lets them fall shut.

When Sam wakes again, it's with a still-parched mouth and a mind which is empty of suggestions as to how he ought to proceed.

Dean is gone, his brain reminds him. Dean is gone. And you kissed Lucifer. Are you going to kiss him again? Are you going to talk to him about this? Are you even sure you want to? And how could you be thinking about kissing Lucifer when DEAN IS DEAD?

This is probably where Sam would ordinarily get up and hunt down a stiff drink, but his body's already punishing him for doing just that back around lunch time. Speaking of which, Sam isn't sure what time it is now.

Once he's out the door and into the hallway, he realises exactly which room he's been resting in; it's the one next door to his previous bedroom. Lucifer's. He can see that the kitchen light is on down the corridor, so he heads towards it. At the very least, he can find himself another glass of water there. A clock he passes on the wall informs him that it's a quarter past eleven—and that's definitely eleven at night, judging by how dark it is.

The only person he comes across in the kitchen space is Lucifer. The artist is turned away from Sam, and is pressing a roller to the wall, pushing it up and down, each movement making a wet crackling sound. He's not wearing a shirt, only his jeans, and Sam's eyes are cataloguing the undulations of the muscles in his back before he gives them permission to do it. He finds that he wants to reach out and touch, run fingers over the paint-flecked skin, but he isn't sure whether he's allowed. Instead, he just pauses and watches as the thick sludgy black goes on in long rectangles. Behind the fresh paint, Sam glimpses the edge of Lucifer's version of Saturn.

He lets his curiosity get the better of him; "Why paint over it?" he asks.

"Wasn't quite right."

"Meg will be upset," Sam says, recalling the admiration in the woman's gaze during Sam's very first visit.

"She always is," Lucifer says tonelessly, "and she always gets over it, always falls in love with the next doodle and forgets about the previous one."

The way Lucifer speaks about his own artwork continues to puzzle Sam; it's like he hates all of it, though clearly he knows he's capable—otherwise he wouldn't continue painting and drawing, would he?

"You say it wasn't right. What wasn't right about it?"

The next time Lucifer goes to dip the roller in the tray of paint, he lets it lie there and turns to Sam. Sam averts his eyes from the smudge of wet black that catches his eye just above Lucifer's nipple, concentrates on looking at the man's face. It's distracting in more ways than one, this sudden attraction—both in the way of any crush, diverting his focus, but also in terms of its sheer unexpectedness, its departure from every possible pattern he could put together to map out the kind of people he typically pursues. His best reasoning is that this is precisely why he likes Lucifer as much as he seems to.

Because he really does. He wants something from him, something he's only had from girls before, something that's different enough to drop his stomach inside him like he's a kid on a rollercoaster, to scare him just the right amount for him never to want it to stop.

"I'm wasting my potential," Lucifer is saying, almost too softly for Sam to hear. "I have the equipment here, and I have the time. I thought that with those things I would be able to create a true masterpiece... but I haven't managed it. In truth, it has been some time since I stopped believing I ever would. I always hoped that being my own person, going my own way, would make me a stand-out, but it has only made me an outcast."

Suddenly, Sam gets it, catches sight of that missing piece that's been key to the puzzle of Lucifer all along. The offspring of pride and insecurity, perfectionism, maybe impatience and anxiety too—it's an insurmountable hurdle that Lucifer has built for himself, an all-or-nothing standard. It occurs to Sam, tragically, that the artist escaped from one such standard, imposed by his father, only to instigate a new and perhaps even loftier one of his own.

"Expectation is the root of all heartache," he quotes as he considers this.

"So it would appear."

"What do you require in a masterpiece? What's on the laundry list?"

Lucifer walks over to the bench, where he picks up a cell phone and begins dialing. "I'm ordering pizza," he says. "Should I make it two?"

Sam nods, but holds his gaze while Lucifer speaks to whatever tired teenager is at the other end.

When he's done, Lucifer pulls up a chair, its wooden legs dragging across the tiled floor with a groan. "I couldn't say, other than that I'd know if I saw it. Good technique. Emotion. Meaning, in the opinion of someone other than merely myself and Meg. Worth enough to be valued outside this dusty old house, out in the world."

"I had this art teacher in school," Sam says, the memory suddenly clear even amongst the blurry years. "She told me never to throw away a drawing. Said you never know when it could be relevant later, when you might be able to use it somehow, or even realise it's better than you'd initially thought it was.

"Besides, if you think about how many artists and writers have only truly been appreciated posthumously... it kind of tells you a lot about how value is assigned. Heck, you only have to listen to some top forty radio to get that a lot of what determines who makes it into the spotlight is luck and timing, things other than actual quality."

Sam's aware that he isn't making sense here, but the only way to go is forward.

"What I'm trying to say is just that letting the immediate success of anything indicate its worth is a really bad idea. Sometimes whoever's looking at it, when, and how, they still get it wrong, and you just have to wait for the right person to see it and bring it into view for the rest. It's a subjective business—but it doesn't sound to me like you're treating it as one. A lack of raging success doesn't equal failure—it's just something in between. It's not something you're stuck with forever just because you land there to begin with, and it certainly doesn't mean you're not worth anything."

It's almost certainly the least coherent thing that Sam has ever said, but Lucifer smiles like he hears the thought behind it.

"Thank you, Sam," he says. Then with a laugh, "I don't know if I can believe you, but thanks for trying."

Mortified by his own babbling, Sam is in the process of opening his mouth to apologise when Lucifer's hand comes up to cup his cheek. It's an asking gesture.

Sam leans into it, leans in towards Lucifer's lips and brushes his own over them in an answering gesture, a wordless yes.

Lucifer pulls back just enough that he's still breathing softly over Sam's mouth. His voice is suddenly serious. "What happened today?"

Aside from the fact that it's probably fair to explain it to the guy whose doorstep he showed up on blind drunk at midday, it suddenly feels important that Lucifer know about Dean. Lucifer knows more about the rest of Sam's life than anybody aside from Dean and John, which means he's the person who will understand the best.

"My brother. I got a letter—two, actually. One from Dean. He sounded... unhappy. And then one saying he's been missing and presumed-"—Sam realises mid-sentence that he hasn't actually said it aloud yet—"dead."

Lucifer's hand is still on his cheek, his breath still warm on his skin, and he doesn't really have to do anything other than stand there. Sam leans in and rests his chin over Lucifer's shoulder, hugging him and probably rubbing dark paint onto his clothes in the process—but there's not much that matters less than that particular thought right now.

The doorbell rings, an out-of-tune series of chimes.

"Pizza," Lucifer smiles.

"I'll get it," Sam offers, already turning to be on his way down the dusty foyer and pulling his wallet from his pocket.

He pulls the door open, musing briefly that it's kind of funny being on the opposite side of it. His only other experience with actually using the front entrance was the very first time he came here; now this house feels like a second home—or maybe, since he's not really sure where his first home is anymore, it feels like more than that.

The man standing outside the door doesn't look like a pizza delivery guy. He's short, with light brown hair that's combed over at the front and peeks out from behind his ears at the back. Trailing behind him is a serious-looking wheelie bag, and there's a gym bag tossed over his shoulder.

The man arches an eyebrow up at Sam.

"Hi there hot stuff," he says. "Is Lucy home?"


	3. Sacreligion

As it turns out, the man at the door is Lucifer's brother Gabriel.

There's a tense silence when he comes into the same room as Lucifer, and Sam, knowing at least some of the story behind the brothers, is unsure of whether he should leave them to it or make sure they _aren't_ left alone. The pizza finally arrives, and Lucifer jumps to fetch it this time. They eat without conversation, Gabriel munching through so many of the slices that Lucifer makes himself and Sam some sort of passive-aggressive, singed cheese on toast afterwards to compensate.

"Don't you want to know what I'm doing here, bro?" Gabriel asks, voice loaded with more cheer than necessary.

"Quite the opposite," Lucifer retorts, a cold drawl.

Gabriel snaps. "Look, don't be mad at me, Lucy. It's not my fault our family is batshit. And it really isn't my fault you provoked Dad the way you did. I never wanted things to be that way, you know I didn't."

Suddenly Lucifer's voice is six times louder. "You could have said something, stood up for me. But no, I wasn't worth that to you. So what is it that makes you worth it to me now?"

"I _told _you I couldn't put myself in the middle of your fight. I warned you! And you're damn right it wasn't worth it—the way you and Dad and Michael were with each other, _nothing _was worth getting involved in that. It's why I left in the first place! So what, maybe you were in the right—but there are ways to be wrong even when you've got the moral high ground. The way you bitched, man, sometimes I wanted to stab you just to stop the spiteful crap coming out your mouth."

Sam, who's still sitting at the edge of the room as the scene unfolds, worries that Gabriel's condemnation will be the breaking point, the pulling of the pin on a grenade. Somehow, though, it appears to be the opposite. The two of them are embracing, like they just needed the kick of passion that came from airing out their anger to reach each other again, to remember where they stood and why they cared. There's saline shining in Gabriel's eyes, and Sam watches on as a smile stretches slowly over Lucifer's face.

"Little brother," Lucifer sighs, "tell me what happened."

Gabriel considers with a tilt of his head. "Nah," he decides, mischievous laughter in his expression. "Let me make myself a sundae first."

Lucifer scowls.

"Okay, okay, fine. Raphael paid me a surprise visit," Gabriel explains, shuddering as he says the words.

"...so there I was, fresh out of the shower and wrapped in nothing but a towel, and there's Raphael sitting in my goddamn bedroom because that prick Zachariah down the hall told him where I kept my spare key—not that I even want to think about how _he_ knew where it was in the first place. Seriously, what a creeper. Anyway, that's when Kali comes out of the bathroom, also wet and wearing a towel." Gabriel looks like he's reminiscing at the same time as being upset about his situation. "Naturally our bro, Mr. No-Sleepovers-With-Girls-Before-Marriage, wasn't too thrilled. That was when _Baldur _came out of the bathroom, wearing... significantly less than a towel."

Sam chokes on an ill-timed mouthful of grilled cheese.

"It was pretty obvious that he was going to report straight back to Mikey, have me booted off the family tree same as you, so I went and dropped out before he could have the satisfaction. I've already got enough business knowledge to start something up for myself without getting the sheet of paper, and frankly anybody who's snobby about who's officially graduated from college and who hasn't isn't who I want to work with. I think I might give that old candy store idea a shot— stock all those sex-related sweets, you know the jelly nipples and thongs made out of sugar beads and dick-shaped mints and chocolate lube. It could be called _Sweet Lovin'_. Or _Sugar Daddy_. Maybe I could even do the bakery thing at the same time, sell all kinds of epic cakes and things! Point is, I'm a free man now, and the world is my oyster."

"Well, that all sounds perfectly fine except for the fact that you'll have to finance it somehow," Lucifer points out.

Gabriel only deflates a tiny bit at the reminder that he's broke now. "Yeah, well, I'll just have to find somebody who agrees that it's an awesome idea, team up. Meanwhile, I have no problem with serving people coffee and burgers in a diner somewhere, saving up some dough. It's always so much fun spitting in the food of the asshole customers—especially if it's sweets they're ordering—adds a whole new level of meaning to _just desserts_." He cackles to himself. "Never gets old."

Gabriel's sense of humour reminds Sam in no small way of Dean's. He wonders what would happen if the two of them were to meet—would it be an explosive alliance, or an all-out teeth-and-nails prank war? It's a happy thought, a laugh, until he remembers that there's no way it could ever happen.

Sam drops by Brady's the follow day to grab the textbook for one of his classes.

"Man," says a dishevelled Brady when he wanders out of his bedroom to find Sam rummaging through the bags he stows behind the couch, "where have you been? We all went out for Jackie's birthday last night, it was madness, you shoulda been there."

For the life of him Sam can't think of a Jackie that both he and Brady know.

"Crashing at a friend's house," Sam says.

"Yeah, that's what you were doing when you were crashing here, too."

"This guy, the house he lives in has about a dozen spare rooms. I appreciate you letting me take your couch, you know I do, but—"

Brady waves his hand around to cut Sam off, as he usually does when Sam tries to be earnest. It's something Dean had used to do too, though he'd done it with shorter, more decisive movements.

"I get it," Brady says. "But you missed out on some action yesterday. This chick called Renée did half a dozen tequila shots in a row, and then she—"

It's Sam's turn to cut Brady off this time, because (aside from the fact he really doesn't want to hear about what happened to Renée to begin with, given that it's Brady's idea of a wild story) while he's not as hung over as he had been before, his stomach still squirms gently at the thought of another drink this soon. He's usually much more restrained than he had been, all messed up after reading the letters, and the lingering sickness serves as one more unhappy reminder.

"Maybe next time," says Sam, a little shortly.

"Sure."

Sam drops by Lucifer's after class even though they haven't made any plans, and he doesn't particularly have a reason—other than he likes being there, and these weird strangers have fast become more like weird friends. Maybe even a sort of loose, dysfunctional family.

Ruby's around the back again, sunbaking in her bathing suit, holding up a novel with one hand and smoking with the other.

"They're out," she says, as he approaches the door. "Meg dragged Gabriel to some art gallery. Lucifer mentioned that he was going to buy new canvases, or frames or whatever."

Ruby pulls her dark sunglasses down her nose a little way and peers over them.

"Come sit with me," she instructs.

She gestures towards a second deck chair and Sam drags it over, seats himself in it. He hasn't spoken with Ruby nearly as much as he has with Lucifer or Meg. She's very beautiful, but she still scares him somewhat; if Meg's smile is sharp, Ruby's is made of icicles.

"I'm sorry about your brother," she says bluntly, sucking and blowing out a slow stream of smoke. "Shit sucks."

Sam vaguely remembers talking to her while he was drunk. He runs a hand back through his hair.

"Yeah," he agrees.

Ruby offers him a puff of her cigarette—which turns out to be less a cigarette and more a fine roll of white paper and green leaves.

_I didn't raise you so that you could throw your life away like that, for nothing_, his dad yells at a past version of Dean in the back of Sam's head—but Dean's dead anyway, now, because apparently it wasn't the throwing his life away part that John had an issue with, only the part where Dean got to choose how he went about doing it, rather than simply following John's orders. Dean is dead anyway, so long before his time that in the end it couldn't have mattered less whether or not he smoked that one pack of Marlboros back in school or two a day for the decade that followed.

Still, cigarettes aren't exactly the same as weed. Sam has his reservations.

"It helps," Ruby says, sympathy written all over her face all of a sudden. "Seriously. When I lost Lilith, it was like there was nothing that could disrupt that feeling of awful nothingness, never-ending except for the moments of really intense pain. There's easy medicine for physical pain, but sometimes you have to get a little bit creative when you're dealing with grief. Just try some, okay?"

_I didn't raise you so that you could throw your life away like that, for nothing_, says John Winchester in the back of his head.

"Fuck it," says Sam, taking the joint between his fingers.

It's great, it really is. Sam has been sitting here with Ruby for who knows how long, just looking at the sky, the way the clouds gather above their heads and the way the wind flicks at the leaves of the trees and shrubs in the yard. Ruby tells jokes, and he laughs at them, or maybe she's not telling jokes at all, just speaking whenever a thought comes to mind. He laughs anyway. Before long he's got a joint all to himself.

He loses track of time, but it must be passing quickly because he's starving for dinner already. He goes through the kitchen (don't tell Meg) and puts together four clumsy sandwiches of leftover chicken and mayo. He takes them into his bedroom—it's odd how comfortably the idea of having a room of his own here sits with him now, especially when he's this tired. When he lies down it feels like he's at sea, like everything is swirling around him much the same way as it does when he's drunk. Regardless, he falls asleep without too much difficulty.

Sam's head feels muggy the next morning, like he's slept for too long and now his body refuses to fully wake up and accept its place in reality. He notices that his eyes are still looking bloodshot while he's going about his business in the bathroom, but nobody asks him about it, probably assuming it comes down to a different way of dealing with grief. It gets Sam thinking about what it might have been like if he indeed had cried himself to sleep the previous night. He weighs that possibility against the afternoon he actually had—the memory of which is soaked in happy yellow-gold, like an old photograph looked back upon with fondness. He thinks he and Ruby are much better friends now, too. They'd talked; not even about anything in particular, just about the way the pool's surface rippled when errant leaves fell in or the shapes in the clouds, their favourite pizza toppings and books and flavours of ice-cream. Sam had told Ruby a little bit about Jess, how she was always watching out for his best interests, trying to make sure he ended up happy, and Ruby interrupted his chuckling with the statement that Jess would have been glad to see how happy he was managing to be in that moment. He recalls smiling, thinking the word _awesome _to himself over and over in relation to just _everything_, and is inclined to agree with her.

When Sam returns later that afternoon and finds Ruby home alone again, he's not so concerned about awkwardness. In answer to her inviting look, he pulls up his chair next to hers again, and lights up in eager anticipation of that same feeling.

They continue the same way, until Sam feels like, aside from Lucifer, Ruby is the person he's closest to. Meg and Gabriel are always too busy watching _Doctor Sexy _or having incredibly aggressive bake-offs in the kitchen, more than one of which Sam has witnessed devolve into a mortifying flour fight. Ruby's around more and more, and Sam increasingly plans is visits according to her schedule.

"You smell like pot," Lucifer remarks one day. He's been painting Sam, a preliminary sketch for a large biblical painting with Sam's figure as the central character, Lucifer. Lucifer's conducting 'artistic research', which in this case involves running his hands (and occasionally his mouth) over the planes of Sam's cheeks, jaw, shoulders. Far be it from Sam to oppose such investigations.

He balks at the idea of talking about the drugs with Lucifer, though. It's beyond odd—especially after everything they've casually confided in one another—withholding details about his activities with one of Lucifer's own housemates. Besides, if he's learned one thing recently it's that drugs aren't nearly as bad as he's been led to believe.

Sam just shrugs. "I was sitting outside with Ruby earlier, we were chatting." It's a non-answer, neither confirmation nor denial, and Sam knows that Lucifer sees it as such. Still, it comes easier than the inexplicably difficult confession that he's been getting high semi-regularly with Meg's weirdly intense sister for the past few weeks.

"Ruby is... troubled," Lucifer says, a veiled warning.

Sam doesn't think Ruby is _troubled_ so much as _pained_. He thinks she's doing a pretty good job at dealing, and she's helping him deal too. He appreciates that.

"She's been through a lot. She does well considering."

Lucifer hums, the sound edging on dissatisfied. He steps back from where he's been leaning in Sam's lap, moves back over to where his easel stands and mixes a puddle of pale blue oil paint around on his tabletop palette. They barely speak again until Lucifer declares that the sitting is adjourned.

Sam rushes into the kitchen after he hears yelling and the deafening crashes of saucepans hitting the tiled floor. With the way Meg guarded her kitchen prior to Lucifer's brother's arrival, it should be no surprise that Gabriel's desire to bake constantly and messily has been met with violent opposition. Regardless, the level of literalness to that violence makes it impossible for Sam not to be somewhat shocked by every outburst. On one eventful occasion, an uncooked devil's food cake and an entire batch of rocky road had to be abandoned after Gabriel's injured nose sprayed blood all over them. Sam's heard Meg growling about finding shaving cream in her toothpaste, and found Gabriel hiding in a closet to avoid one of her rampages; seen her running burnt wrists under cold water and him pouring booze over open sores and into his open mouth interchangeably.

Today, Sam's been trying to study for a quiz on international politics, and is honestly ready to fill up buckets and douse the pair of them with iced water if they won't shut up and just _try _to tolerate each other.

What he finds is, in fact, Meg and Gabriel tolerating each other very much.

There has been a brief lull in the argument, he realises when he steps into the kitchen and finds them pressed up against the bench, tongues in each other's mouths. There's flour in Meg's hair, where Gabriel's hand has bunched there and rubbed it in; Meg has been wearing dark lipstick, but Gabriel is now wearing just as much of it. It takes no more than two seconds for Sam officially to have heard more moaning noises out of them than he ever, ever wanted to.

It's been a long day. Sam has received less than optimal marks back on two separate assessment tasks, and his faith in his own ability to earn the scholarship he needs is wavering dangerously. He breathes through the stress, long deliberate inhales that conjure up the sense memory of pulling back smoke. The promise of more weed from Ruby sticks in his mind after that, and he sits impatiently through his lectures until his focus is so shot he decides it's no great waste of his time simply to skip the last one.

Ruby's not out in the back garden when he arrives at the house, which is unusual considering he knows she's been around from mid to late afternoon every Wednesday afternoon for the past month at least.

There's nobody in the kitchen when he lets himself in, and nobody watching the TV either. The stress of college is obviously messing with him even more than he'd previously realised, because Sam's hands are shaking to the point of fumbling inconvenience. He's already pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolling through his contacts before it occurs to him that he doesn't have Ruby's number.

Sam sinks into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and looks at the artwork on the wall to distract himself from his disappointment. The Saturn painting is long gone, overwritten with white line drawings of symbols he doesn't recognise, written out almost like they're runes of some kind. The acrylic paint weeps long drips down the plaster. The new scribbles are more akin to graffiti in an alleyway than fine art.

Lucifer wanders in after about half an hour of absent staring on Sam's part.

"I'm very much in the mood to paint something, if you're up for it," he says, sauntering around the kitchen to prepare a pot of coffee and a few slices of toast. He offers the same to Sam, who takes him up on the coffee.

They resume their ordinary setup, but trying to sit still only makes Sam acutely aware of how antsy he feels.

"Could I bum a cigarette by any chance?" he asks Lucifer finally. It won't be the same as what Ruby gets him, but it'll still be good.

Lucifer stops the sponge work he's doing and looks at Sam, not just a look that takes stock of the shadows and tones of his face, but one which seeks to read what's underneath.

When he speaks, his voice is stiff, even reluctant. "I don't usually like to smoke indoors, but if you open the windows I suppose you could."

Lucifer wipes the excess paint off his hands with a rag and leaves the room without a word. He returns with a small box in his hand, tosses it at Sam who only just manages to catch it in time. Sam's taken to carrying his own lighter, which he draws from his pocket and flicks over the end of the yellow and white roll.

"I didn't think you smoked," Lucifer says offhandedly.

Sam shrugs. "It's reasonably new. I've just had a crappy day, is all."

"Want to tell me about it?"

Sam explains the part about his slipping marks, and he's about to launch into a description of how frustrating the rest of the day was when he realises he can't exactly pinpoint any reason why it was so bad.

"Just in a mood, I guess," he finishes lamely. He doesn't talk much after that, just revels in the hot clouds that waft around and in and out of him. Smoking is easier.

He's on his third one when Lucifer puts his brush down, loudly. The artist takes care of his tools, and Sam's never seen or heard him getting unnecessarily rough with them before; even if he's angry, he'll work it out with Pollock-esque tosses of paint, or by obliterating sections of the kitchen wall with sheets of dark nothing, readying it for a new layer later on. With Lucifer, it's always productive destruction, not just roughness for roughness' sake. Which is why his clattering startles Sam.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"You're not giving me what I need here, Sam."

Sam shifts uncomfortably under the frank criticism. "Okay, um. Show me what you need, then? I'll try and do better."

"It's not something I can just _show _you how to do—that's always been the point. You're special, Sam, I knew it the first second I laid eyes on you—there's so much _character _in you, all these layers of it that I just needed to dig through. You're my muse, Sam, and I've been more inspired since I met you than I can remember being in all the time before... but it's like you've grown dull before my eyes. You're losing key bits of _you_, and I'm losing my grip on you as it happens."

Lucifer sighs, and Sam can see his anger subsiding, leaving behind the stiffness from before.

"I'm fine," Sam says. "But if you need to take back your grip, go ahead."

There's a change in Lucifer, like a shadow passing across him, and the stiffness is hidden again, but not by anger, per se. His stare chisels into Sam, but it's weighty with determination and desire now.

Lucifer strides across the room and takes out a wide roll of something white. He lays it down on the floor, stretches out several square metres of it and then cuts it free from the coil.

"Take off your shirt," he says. It's not a question, Sam can hear that much. Lucifer doesn't raise his voice, but it it's so steady and sure that Sam can't imagine a shout sounding any more commanding than the level words do.

Sam wedges the end of the cigarette between his lips to hold it there, and puts his hands to work shedding his outer layers, fingering open his shirt buttons.

"Good," Lucifer acknowledges when Sam is finished and the shirts are piled up on the floor beneath his stool. "Now hold still."

The artist doesn't approach him for a good minute, just pokes and prods around the dollops of paint on his table.

"When I first saw you, you just seemed so... bright. Like you were overflowing with all these things—sadness, determination, confusion, pride, loneliness. I saw pieces of myself there, though in you they were better arranged. You're free to do as you wish with Ruby if you see fit to trust her; you are your own person—but I need you to know that you're not hiding it as well as you think. Everyone in this house can see everything that's been going on as clear as day, and we can all see the way it's clouding you over. It's so much harder to make out that spark, now."

Sam's not sure how he's supposed to take that, but he reaches reflexively for denial.

"I'm not doing anything with Ruby."

Lucifer just looks on, like he doesn't plan on dignifying the blatant lie with a response.

"When I first painted you, there was so much vibrancy to capture, enough of it emanating from you for me to borrow some and put it on my page. Now, I only wish I could take a brush and colour it back into you."

Lucifer wanders over with a scrap of thick brown box-cardboard as a makeshift palette, and a broad brush in his other hand. He stops right in front of Sam, then crouches down to look him in the face.

"You had this iron-strong drive to succeed," Lucifer says, and he takes a dollop of steely grey acrylic on his brush. He stands up again, walks around behind Sam. "This streak of determination, it ran right through you, like a second spine."

All of a sudden something cold is touching the bare skin of Sam's back. He flinches away from it but it only presses in harder, dragging down in a moist swipe. He can feel the tickle of the brush bristles as they trace a long line from between his shoulder blades to the small of his back.

"Your anger, it reminded me of a couple of things," Lucifer continues, speaking to Sam almost as though he doesn't really care if he listens. Sam knows better than to believe he really doesn't, but the detachment is strange in combination with the stroking touches on his naked torso.

"This dark red," Lucifer dips his brush in a colour that looks like clotted blood, "is how I saw that rage that simmered quietly inside you." The brush finds Sam's chest, swirls around in the hollows of his collarbones and moves down over his right pectoral. It's not a smooth line like the grey colour on his back; rather Lucifer slaps it on in messy scrubs.

"Then there's this orange, for the bits of anger that escape, like burning ashes leaping out of a fire." The new colour is so bright it's almost fluorescent, something in between carrot-coloured high-vis and fresh arterial blood. Lucifer stabs the brush against Sam's stomach leaving tight dots and drags of paint behind.

It goes on and on, Lucifer swiping pigments all over Sam while he sits still and silent.

This shade of cornflower blue, according to Lucifer, represents the calm that Sam projects. This icy one, so pale it's almost white, wraps in rings around his middle like the isolation it's supposed to signify. The warm yellow over his left pectoral is his persistent optimism, hibernating there in his heart even when he's feeling low. The deep Prussian blue that melts down his upper arms is the colour of his sadness, and the hard coal black smeared at sharp angles over the lines of his jaw and cheekbones the dark grief that clumps cancerously, festering and polluting.

"This is just some of what I saw in you," Lucifer says, stepping back when he's finished. He returns to the table where the paints are and squirts out green, brown, smidgeons of red and black from their respective tubes. He mixes them together not with his brush, but with two fingers. Sam watches curiously as the artist presses his whole hand palm-down in the resulting tertiary shade, a sort of dried-leaf colour.

He hasn't spoken this whole time, hasn't asked any questions, but "What are you doing that for?" slips out now.

"Adding a final layer. This is what I see now."

Lucifer's paint-covered hand is around Sam's throat before he even notices the artist reaching out. His fingers are firm, though not bruising. He chokes mostly on his own surprise. Lucifer's other hand smears grey-green through the other paint on Sam's torso, muddying the colours and blurring the shapes. The hand on Sam's neck drags upwards and does the same to the colours on his chin and cheeks.

Sam gets the message, he does. He feels bad that he's somehow too dull and muddled to be the muse Lucifer wants, but in dulling himself down he's numbed the pain—hell, he's even found a few puffs of happiness—and he can't make himself regret that right now.

"Sorry I'm not an inspiration anymore," he shrugs.

If Sam's reading him right, Lucifer's hurt by that. It's a fleeting pinched expression which flares under the stoic nonchalance, sinking back beneath the surface as quickly as it appeared, but Sam catches it all the same.

"You inspire my art, yes, but I had thought—I had hoped, that there was something else between us as well. You've been just as distant in that regard."

Oh. So that was what this was really about—maybe Sam _hadn't _received the message as clearly as he'd previously believed. It's true that he hasn't seen as much of Lucifer recently; Sam's been hanging out with Ruby, and he knows Lucifer's been out at art stores and frame shops and galleries more often because Ruby informs Sam of his whereabouts each time he meets her around back. It's not that he hasn't liked the few kisses he's shared with Lucifer, and it's not that he doesn't want to kiss him again—the right moment just hasn't really made itself apparent.

"I haven't meant to be," he answers Lucifer, and this time his voice is laden with honest regret.

"I don't know what you see in me," Lucifer mumbles, and from what Sam can tell the statement is twofold: he wants to know that Sam is really looking into him the way he's just shown Sam he looks into him, but there's also that fact that Lucifer just doesn't quite know how to value himself properly, needing to measure himself in terms of other people's approval.

Sam stands up. Wordlessly, he moves into Lucifer's space and grabs the hem of his singlet, tugging it up over his head and tossing it onto the floor along with his own shirt. There's still paint on the cardboard, which now lies on the floor. Sam dips his fingers into deep red paint. He looks to Lucifer, who looks like a limp mannequin he's so impassive. He grabs him by the chin, fingertips digging colour into his cheeks.

"I see hurt," he narrates his process in the same way as Lucifer had done. "Mostly beneath the surface, but it's like some of it burns right through and your only defence is to pull a face that says _I know I look damaged and I don't care_."

Sam's not an artist, but as he steps back and looks at the way his marks are left wet on Lucifer's skin, he thinks this is a mode of expression he can do. It's a simpler language than that of shapes and lines on paper, each one of which has to be put down precisely right and in proportion, pulling pictures from blankness. This is almost more like words—even though in theory the random marks should make even _less _sense than carefully crafted pictures—the colours all have their connotations, embodying things too fundamental to be broken down by more complex signs and symbols. Or maybe it's music that this is closest to?

The next colour Sam wants isn't on Lucifer's pallet, so he goes to find the tube of it and puts a generous amount out. It seems so simple as he does it, like there's no reason to doubt his movements or the interpretation he's running with. He becomes aware that there isn't actually a right or wrong answer here, and he revels in that, for once.

Sam flexes his left hand around the paint in a white squelch, rubs it together with his right, and smooths both of them down over Lucifer's chest. His nipples harden under the attention, the peaks of them covered with ivory.

"I see a need for perfection. You're so damned busy trying to make yourself flawless because you think that's how people have to be—and yet, you've _just_ told me all about how much the messy, raw parts of _me _inspire you. It's hypocritical."

Sam half-blends a bright cobalt green with black, just enough that the two hues stripe together when he lays them down upon Lucifer's ribcage.

"You have envy, and it eats you alive—but I think the thing you're most jealous of isn't something that even exists; it's an imagined ideal person or ideal life. So that envy's been lurking in there so long that it's begun to rot."

Sam swipes a clump of blue paint off his arm and wipes it off on Lucifer's. "You have sadness, too."

Finally, Sam takes a tube of cool red and places his painted hand over Lucifer's chest. He can feel the pulsing of it, and it occurs to him that the two of them are close, very close, and touching at this point there's no fabric between them, only layers of human skin and muscle and bone keeping his hand from Lucifer's heart.

He takes a deep breath, because all of a sudden it feels like he really needs the extra air.

"I see so much love, too much love, going bitter because it seems like nobody wants it from you."

Lucifer, who's been positively statuesque while Sam has painted him, flinches at that, and this is how Sam knows how right his assessment is.

"I want you, Lucifer. I do. I just... well, don't exactly have a great track record with wanting things, let alone having them, or keeping them."

Lucifer makes a small, surprised sound that Sam is one hundred percent sure is completely involuntary, and then leans forward to kiss Sam. He works his lips open, slides his tongue inside, and it's too distracting for Sam's head to keep up with, because there are also hands pulling his chest to Lucifer's, sliding paint-slick all the way down to where his jeans sit on his hips.

"Off," Sam says, able to comprehend at least that one word for long enough to rip himself away and deal with the rest of his clothes while Lucifer does the same.

It's weird; now that they're naked, Sam can't remember why he was apprehensive about this at all. It doesn't feel like a trial, testing to see how he'll cope with a new type of sex. It doesn't bring back memories of when he was last intimate with someone, either, doesn't feel like he's replacing Jess, just doing something new with someone too different to compare. Maybe it's hard to be worried when Lucifer is here equally nude and paint-smothered. He looks like he's been beset by an entire class of kindergarteners with freakishly massive hands.

Lucifer pulls him in the direction of the white sheet he set down earlier. Under his feet, Sam can feel that it's canvas.

"You planned this!" he accuses, but not without a grin.

Lucifer shakes his head. "I merely hoped."

"You know I'm pretty sure they sell overpriced art kits for couples to do this sort of thing with. It's pretty unoriginal," Sam teases.

"I'm aware. But you've said I pay too much attention to what outsiders think; this—hackneyed premise or otherwise—is not about anyone else, anywhere else, or what they might think. Besides, you and I haven't done this before; therefore it is original."

"Okay. Yeah. Good." Lucifer's touching him, and Sam's been reduced to expressing himself with wandering hands in the absence of readily-available, coherent sentences.

Lucifer lowers him back slowly, and together they desecrate the canvas.

They see more of each other after that, Sam and Lucifer. In the afternoons when Sam sits for Lucifer as he paints. In the evenings when they watch _Doctor Sexy_ with Meg and Gabriel, and eat Meg's roasts and pies, and try but fail to get away with nicking brownies before she announces that it's dessert time. At night, when Lucifer sneaks into Sam's room and tangles their legs together.

The semester has finally ended, and Sam's landed marks a little lower than usual, but nobody calls him out on it since they know he's been through a lot—even if they don't actually know the half of it. Sam minds the small drop in his GPA less than he expects himself to.

He agrees to have drinks with Brady and a bunch of his other friends because it's been long enough since they hung out properly that making excuses is more difficult than simply going along.

Brady orders them both shots, and watches with increasing incredulity as Sam downs each one without batting an eyelid.

"Dude, when did you get fun? You were always a _No thanks two drinks is enough for now _kind of guy," he says. "Not that I'm complaining."

The truth is, Sam doesn't know what to talk about with Brady anymore. The new things going on in his life seem like a whole other world now he's out in this familiar setting with these old faces, the faces of people who seem content simply to party and barely-pass their way through school, not reaching for more and not having to crawl their way back from too much less. People who just don't understand, who couldn't if they tried.

So he drinks, matches Brady's intake and his smile and his laughter at whatever the others are saying, and it gets easier as the vodka takes hold.

The group of them head up to the rooftop area of the bar. It's busy but not too crowded, and the breeze washes second-hand smoke from nearby patrons over them. Sam finds himself yearning for one of his own, something to hold in his hand, lift to his mouth, an action to excuse his lack of contribution to the conversation. They're talking about football, or something.

"Hey, have you got any cigarettes?" Sam asks Brady.

"Why, what for?"

"For me."

Brady regards Sam with even more surprise. "You don't smoke, dude!"

"Do now. Have you got any or what?"

"Sure, sure." Brady fumbles around and produces two, one of which he hands to Sam, while he lights the other for himself. "So what have you been into that you're suddenly bumming ciggies from me?"

"Just hanging around with this friend of mine. He's an artist."

"Yeah, that's right, the guy with a million spare rooms," Brady recalls, pausing for a long inhale. "Well it seems like he's been a good influence on you, at least. Am I ever gonna get to meet him?"

Sam realises with a jolt that he's not so keen on that idea. He wants to keep Lucifer and all the things and people that come with him separate from this other bit of his life, like he'd always kept his own little study space out on the edge of campus to himself. Lucifer had found that place, and it's as though he's extended it to encompass both of them plus Meg and Ruby and Gabriel, their house, their talks, their TV dinners, their painting.

"He's pretty busy," Sam answers evasively. "Maybe someday, I don't know."

What follows is a blur of more drinking, more wafting smoke and laughter Sam can't connect with. He's just wondering whether Lucifer's likely to be around tomorrow, or whether Ruby will be, when Brady taps him on the shoulder and points towards toward the bar where Ruby herself is standing, wrapped just barely in a tight black dress, her eyes so smoky Sam can only just catch glimpses of the whites under the huge heavy lashes.

"Check it out," Brady says approvingly. "She's hot, right?"

"Yeah, whatever," he answers absently.

"No, dude, really—you should go for it. It's been months, I _know _Jess would want you to get back on the market."

"Who says I haven't already?"

"The fact that I won't believe you until you can show me photos of whatever mystery girl you're implying exists. Until then, either you can go talk to that chick over there, or I will—and if you don't, I will hound you for eternity."

Sam sighs. The easiest way out, here, is probably just to approach Ruby, talk for a minute or so and then return to Brady with the story that she's not interested. Hell, Sam's pretty certain it'd be the honest truth, given what he knows about Ruby's history and sexual preference. She's never really tried to make a move on him before, just flirted in that same intimidating but harmlessly meant way that her sister does.

That being the case, at least he can spare her Brady's advances.

"Fine."

If Ruby's surprised to see him here, she hides it very well.

"Hi," she says, as she sips on something dark purple and sweet-looking. "What can I do for you Sam?"

Sam explains the situation with Brady, and Ruby laughs. Thinking back over his explanation, Sam considers that maybe she's partly laughing at the way he's stumbling through words now, rather than properly enunciating them. He hadn't noticed himself getting that drunk, but apparently he is, so there.

"Tell your friend I'd have been all over you if I wasn't already taken," she leans in close to his ear to speak the words quietly, setting a hand on his arm for effect.

"But you're not already taken," Sam puzzles. "Are you?"

Ruby shakes her head. "I'm not, but _you _are, and apparently you're not up to coming out and telling your friends that just yet."

"I just—" he begins, but Ruby interrupts.

"I don't want to hear whatever bullshit excuse you've got going around in that head, okay. But I've got a little something that might help your bud get over the disappointment of you and me failing to hit it off here," she winks secretively.

One of Ruby's hands is still squeezing Sam's bicep, but the other is sneaking down below his waist. He almost shifts away from it, startled, but Ruby shushes him and holds him still as she slips something into his pocket.

"Keep it for yourself, share it, I don't mind. But you can tell your friend there's more where that came from."

With one final peck on the cheek, Ruby turns and moves away through the sea of people crowding around the bar and out of Sam's sight. Sam returns to his seat beside Brady at one of the wiry outdoor tables.

"No luck, already taken."

"Damn," Brady says. "Well, I saw this redheaded girl earlier who—"

"Hey, look, I appreciate you doing this," Sam lies, "but I still don't think I'm quite ready for it anyway."

He slides a hand down into his pocket to see what Ruby left there, and his fingers emerge clasping the top of a small snap lock bag. Inside it is what looks like paper, divided into four squares.

"Hey, uh, that girl did give me something, though," he says, surreptitiously passing the bag over into Brady's lap.

Brady stares back at him. "Who are you," he asks, a grin breaking out over his face, "and what the fuck did you do with Sam Winchester?"

He probably wouldn't have done it if he were sober—hell, he almost _definitely _wouldn't have done it if he were sober—and that's the real shame, isn't it, all the decisions in life that people have to make when they're sober when they could have made them so much better drunk. Sam wouldn't be here in the bathroom where the mirrors are reflecting the cubicle doors and the white toilet bowls inside are glowing and dancing with each other, and the urinals on the other wall are spinning and too-shiny, if he hadn't taken the tab of acid. Sam's hip makes contact with the edge of a porcelain sink, and he remembers that turning the taps makes water come out, which is cool. He does that, sticks his hand under the flow and laughs at the sensation. Just vaguely, he remembers that usually washing your hands isn't this amazing. Just another reason why it's such a shame that most people have to be sober all the time. It's a shame that Sam can't go to law school like this, that he has to be serious and boring and ordinary instead.

A sound starts bouncing around the tiled room, a rhythm that Sam's limbs find intoxicating, and he starts bobbing along with it. There's also a sort of buzzing feeling against his butt, at which he laughs even louder than he had at the tap. Or the urinals. Or whatever he'd been laughing about before. He pats a hand down over the buzzing thing, and realises belatedly that it's the vibration of his cell phone. Clumsily, he gets his phone out.

All the lights and colours on the screen are glowing like Christmas lights, and jiggling around even though he doesn't think he's moving his hand enough to shake them up like that. He catches the contact name on the screen, though. It says, "Dean".

Sam can't quite lay his finger on it, but it sure feels like there's some important reason why this surprises him.

Ah, that's right. It's because Dean's dead.

The doors of the toilet cubicles are staring at him. He doesn't like it. He tells them as much.

If Dean's dead, then someone else must be calling with his phone, right? Dad is probably the only person who could do that—not that it's likely he _would_ do it.

He aims for the answer button as carefully as he can, tongue working its way out between his lips with the concentration. When at last he succeeds, he holds the phone up to his ear.

"Sam Win- Wincher-" why does he have to have a name with this many letters in it? Why has he never noticed how annoying and difficult it is before? "Winchester. That's me. At your service."

"Jesus, Sammy, how drunk are you?" a voice asks, and Sam looks around quickly but there's nobody else in the bathroom with him. He presses the phone closer to his ear. The voice doesn't sound like John at all.

"I'm drunk," he confirms.

"Well, yeah, that wasn't my question. Listen, I'm back home, back in the US, okay?—rumours of my death were kind of exaggerated. So if you got that dumb letter I sent you, you'll know that you owe me a beer—"

"Wait," Sam tells the disembodied voice in his phone. The voice sounds exactly like Dean, and Dean sent him a letter saying that he wanted to drink beer with Sam, but Dean is also dead. Maybe the voice in the phone is disembodied because it's a ghost.

"Are you a ghost?" he whispers.

"What? Are you high, dude?" Dean's ghost asks.

"Mmhm," Sam smiles. The ghost can't see him smiling, because it's in the phone, but people should smile more anyway, so he just keeps grinning to himself.

"What the hell? No, you know what, don't even try to tell me. I'm just calling to warn you that I'm coming to visit. And if you forget then you'll totally deserve me showing up out of the blue and walking in on you in your embarrassing girly underwear."

"Are you going to haunt me?" Sam asks.

"Yes, Sammy. I'm going to haunt your ass forever."

"Okay."

Dean's ghost hangs up the phone, so Sam puts it back in his trouser pocket and wonders what on earth that was supposed to mean. It's probably the LSD, he thinks. He must be having a bad trip, hallucinating. Or is it a good trip, because he got to speak to Dean again?

He stumbles out of the bathroom eventually, because there's a clown at one of the urinals and he has to escape while he can. Occasionally using the wall to make sure the world stays the right way up, he wanders around in search of Brady or Ruby, and wonders whether he'll remember his conversation with Dean come morning.


	4. Relativity

This afternoon, Ruby isn't smoking a cigarette or a joint. It's only after Sam's taken his seat beside her that he realises what she's sucking on is a pipe of some kind. She offers the pipe to him.

Sam's still recovering, mentally, from the fact that he took an acid trip in the middle of some bar the previous week. He didn't die or irreparably maim himself—or, to his knowledge, at least, kill or irreparably maim anyone else—but that's just the problem: he doesn't _really _know. He's just put together what scant memories and clues he has to come to that conclusion.

Sam's been drunk plenty of times before—and he's not even particularly comfortable with some of the consequences of that, honestly—but he's pretty sure he had an argument with a toilet cubicle door while he was on that trip, which, if it isn't a new low, is still a new and uncomfortable level of weird.

He also thinks he remembers, though, that none of it was really that bad at the time. Sure, there are chunks missing from his version of the story, but the pieces he has all tell him it was fairly enjoyable. So he's been trying to come to terms with that, too.

"Don't worry so much," Ruby reassures him. "Everything's been fine so far, hasn't it? And you can't tell me it hasn't helped."

Not worrying is hard. Sam's always tried to keep himself in line; he's always done exactly what he thought he needed to in order to become the person—the normal, successful, _normal_ person that he's desperately wanted to be. His dilemma now is that, with Jess dead and Dean dead too and everything falling apart, he can't bottle things of such magnitude up and go about his business. The only way he can put them out of his mind is by distracting himself, and Ruby gives him distraction.

The rush is the best he's had from any substance yet. It's possibly even better than anything he's felt _ever_, not even the adrenaline of leaving home behind as college and freedom beckoned, or the euphoria of getting his first high distinction at Stanford. The feeling isn't attached to anything as those emotions were, places and people with their lights and shadows and their impermanence—it's just like breathing in happiness straight out of the air.

"You're right," he tells Ruby. "You're so right."

Ruby chuckles. "Keep that," she says, when Sam goes to hand the pipe back across to her. "I've had enough for now."

Sam doesn't know how anyone could have enough of this feeling.

Going back to normal feels especially horrible now that he's experienced so amazing a high. He feels that heavy, guilty kind of horrible that comes with a hangover when you've done something really bad, like stripped naked on a tabletop in the middle of a party, or clocked somebody in the face much harder than they deserved. Not that Sam's actually done the former, but he imagines this is something like how the freshly-sobered aftermath might feel if he had.

He lies on his bed and tries to find something to focus on, but everything seems hopeless.

It's like arriving at the beach and breathing in a cool sea breeze after inhaling car exhaust all day. Ruby lets him have the pipe to himself again and just smokes tobacco herself. Sam feels greedy, but she seems pleased that she can help him with this. He can't even remember why he'd been cautious around Ruby at first; she's done nothing but help him.

As the end of the afternoon draws on, Sam notices that she's throwing him odd glances. They're almost guilty looks, concerned ones, and Sam's observant; he knows when someone's trying to broach a topic and not knowing how to start.

"What's wrong?" He gives her the in that she obviously wants.

Ruby breathes a heavy sigh. "I didn't want to have to do this," she says, "because we're friends, you know? But I hope that because we're friends, that'll mean you'll understand."

"What is it?" Sam's gut tightens with anxiety. Is she cutting him off? Even though she knows how much better things have been since she's been helping him out like this?

"It's just—I owe debts to people, Sam. Not nice people. And you've been using quite a bit lately—which is fine, it's good that you've found a rhythm and everything—but it's more than I can afford to just give you, for free."

_She's not cutting him off. _She isn't cutting him off. She's just asking for what he should really have been giving her all along; money to pay for the drugs.

"That's okay," he says, lays a hand on her shoulder in a brief gesture of comfort. "Just tell me how much."

Paying Ruby is no big deal. Sam's got a stack of used textbooks to sell from his classes this past semester, so he gets a reasonable amount of cash for those, and it lasts him a while. He's getting used to the high the meth gives him so his body asks for a little more each time, but he hadn't started out with all that much, so that's okay too. Still, he gets worried sometimes that he won't be able to keep this up—usually once he's come down and hit his low again. Each time he reassures himself that he's lost too many of the good things in his life already; whatever it takes, he'll find a way to hold on to this one.

Things with Lucifer are complicated lately. During the day it's not at all like they're—well, whatever they are. Lovers?—it's like they're barely even friends. Acquaintances who can remain civil so long as neither opens his mouth to speak. When Lucifer paints Sam, he keeps his remarks brusque. He implies some things about Ruby that Sam doesn't much like, makes insinuations like Sam shouldn't be going after the happiness that getting high gives him.

At night, they're something different. Lucifer still comes into Sam's room, still strips their clothes away and presses himself as close as can be—but it's still in silence that they do this. It's the opposite of all the talking they used to do, and it feels like they're further than ever away from each other even as they're tangled together hot and sticky, skin to skin.

It makes Sam wonder what he's doing here. He signs up for the summer course he's been planning to do since the beginning of the year, and figures it probably won't be so bad to have something to fill up a bit of his time—besides, the alternative is additional shifts serving burgers and soda to people who are just waiting for a reason to bitch and whine at him. This does mean, however, that he ends up forking out another three hundred dollars for textbooks, rather than earning more money.

Each time he buys more meth from Ruby he tells himself he'll wait longer until the next time, ration what cash he has left—but each time he falls harder and messier than the time before, comes crawling back sooner.

The day he finally runs out, he sits on his bed and tries to think before his mood drops back to the depths of hell. He thinks of the things he owns, wonders if he has anything left to sell after the fire, but he surfaces from that train of thought with nothing.

Maybe it's just paranoia, but Sam swears he can already feel the depression sinking back into his bones, dark and aching like it's physically hollowing him out. Anxiety crawls through him like insects under his skin. He imagines what it might be like never to get another fix, wonders whether he would die from that.

He considers options he knows he wouldn't have before.

He goes through the Azazels' silver one morning when Lucifer's out jogging, Ruby's not around, and both Meg and Gabriel are yet to return from some huge party. He treads lightly in the dusty room, his footfalls still stirring up dust for the morning sunlight to catch and toy with. He's pulled on plastic gloves just in case—not, he tells himself, that anyone is going to notice. The family has _stacks _of stuff stowed away in here, crystal and fine bone china to boot. There are numerous sets of silverware. Sam selects two reasonably nondescript boxes from amongst the lot, dusts them off and puts them into his bag.

The guy behind the counter at the pawn shop is grey and balding, maybe sixty or sixty-five, and he raises his eyebrows at Sam as he inspects the silver.

"This is some fine cutlery, son," he says. "To be honest, I'm not sure why you're bringing it here. Could get a better deal if you sought out someone who was after precisely this."

Sam puts on an awkward smile. "Yeah, I know, it's just—well, I lost my apartment to a fire recently,"—the best lies, after all, are the ones with the most truth in them—"and the insurance drama is a nightmare, so I'm just selling off a few of the old things my family left behind to get by until everything's sorted. Getting the money quickly is more important to me right now than getting slightly more of it, y'know?"

"That's terrible to hear," the man shakes his head in sympathy. "The most I can offer you is two-fifty for the lot. I probably shouldn't even do that, on this shop's budget, but you seem like a nice kid."

"That's good, thank you," Sam says, and he doesn't have to feign his gratefulness as he takes the cash and leaves the stolen silver behind.

He gets less for the two-fifty than he's expecting, which is a blow.

"I'm sorry to have to dump this on you, Sam," says Ruby, "but there's nothing I can do about it, prices have just risen lately. If it helps, this stuff is really pure. Still totally worth it."

Days later, he's returning to the pawn shop with another tray of silver and a set of small painted china plates that look expensive enough. The same man is in as before.

"What kind of family are you _from_, boy?" he says, turning one of the bread-and-butter plates over in his hands. With the look of suspicion he gives Sam as he takes the goods and hands him his money in return, Sam knows that he will have to find somewhere else to take his stolen goods in future.

"I'd like to show you something," Lucifer mumbles into the flesh of Sam's shoulder, lips pressing lightly against the bruising his teeth had left behind there minutes earlier. His voice doesn't sound angry, doesn't sound cold or detached, just easy and soft. It warms Sam, makes him feel happy and wanted in a way he hadn't even known he could have been having until now.

"Yeah?" he prompts, shifting so that he can run his fingers through Lucifer's ruffled hair, trail a thumb down over his cheekbone. The movements are tender, more so than usual, and maybe they'll snap out of the unexpected softness of tonight's post-orgasmic haze, remember all the things about each other that have turned this thing between them so rough and angular and stony, and never return here—but until then, Sam only plans to relax into it and enjoy.

"We'll have to get out of bed, though," Lucifer groans, like he's torn in a perfect fifty-fifty over whether he really wants them to move or not.

"Five more minutes and then we'll get up," Sam suggests.

"You have yourself a deal."

The first couple of minutes consist of nothing but the slow, sleepy trace of hands and feet over muscle.

Sam's not drunk, and he's not high, but he's not feeling like he's just woken up in a gutter either, which is how he'd expected to feel given the ever-lowering equilibrium of his mood recently. He wants to stay here, wait out that inevitable storm of guilt and shame and fresh desperation.

He's not drunk and he's not high, but his thoughts spill out his mouth of their own accord almost as though he is;

"Is this what it could be like for us?" he wonders aloud. "If I didn't... you know, if I stopped?"

Lucifer mumbles softly, "I certainly hope so."

"And if I don't? Could it still be this way?"

Lucifer lifts his head up so that he can meet Sam's eyes. "I'm afraid not," he says, and it's disappointing even though Sam had already known the answer. "It can't work when your focus is so consumed by something else, and I can't reach into that world to find you. You have to come to me if you want this, and to come towards me is to run away from _it_."

"You can't look past it to find me?—or is it that you won't?"

Lucifer sighs. "_Can't_. I can't... if I try to climb down into that pit again, try to forgive drugs for what they do to people in any way, allow myself to love them as a part of you, I don't think I'll be able to climb back out."

"Can I ask you to tell me more about that?" says Sam, cautious like he had been during their first ever exchange of personal information. It's different now, with more history between them, but it also feels the same; he doesn't want to step the wrong way and crack the glaze of harmony that they have under these covers in this moment.

"You can. You need only be certain you want to hear about it."

"Okay then, tell me."

Lucifer looks over at the clock. "Our five minutes are up," he says, and begins disentangling his limbs from Sam's.

"So tell me about it while you show me whatever it is you're showing me?"

It takes another minute or so for them both to climb out of bed and put their boxers back on in case they run into Meg or Gabriel around the house.

"Turn on the light," Lucifer says. The bedside lamp is already on, but Sam obliges and flicks the switch to the main ceiling light, squinting momentarily at the sudden brightness of everything.

Lucifer holds out an arm—not reaching or gesturing towards anything, just offering it to Sam. Sam moves closer and lifts a hand to it. He feels the tattooed skin, admires the inked curls and letters as he has done before. _And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light_, he makes out among the twists. He's looked at the markings a few times before, but each time it's like he discovers something new in them.

"Is that a bible verse?" he asks.

"Yes," confirms Lucifer. "2 Corinthians chapter eleven, verse fourteen. But that isn't what I meant for you to see right now. Look underneath the tattoos—they're difficult to see nowadays, but they're still there if you look closely, under a light."

So Sam looks closer, tries not to let his attention catch on the patterns and words until finally he makes out what he thinks Lucifer wants him to. A series of shiny scars pockmark his forearm, and given their context in this conversation Sam doesn't really have to ask what they are.

He does anyway, because he needs to hear it.

Lucifer's explanation is but a word—"Heroin." There's a haunted look in his eyes that Sam can't recall seeing there in such measure before, like just saying the word fills him with something heavy and burning.

"It was while I was out on the street. In the beginning it helped, took some of the pain away from the fresh memories of my father and brothers, and all that had been said and done. But of course, after every hit you fall back to someplace lower than where you first began. That's the cycle—one step up and two steps down. I had nothing but addiction still found things to take from me; I had never been with a man before, and all through my first time I hoped it would be my last—but it wasn't, because it bought me my next dose, and the one after that. I did things that made me believe I really _was _a monster, that my father and brothers were right."

Sam is struck dumb. "But if you've been there then why did you let me—" he starts.

Lucifer interrupts. "_Because _I've been there. Because I see a lot of myself in you, and I know that I wouldn't have listened. You can't fight something like that unless you want to. You have to justify it to yourself, be answerable to yourself for your successes and your failures; for it to work you have to do it of your own free will."

Sam nods. This is the opening in the conversation for pledges of sobriety, for declarations of the fact that Lucifer means more to him than the drugs do—but Sam doesn't like making promises he's not sure he can keep, and he knows Lucifer would rather that he not say anything than swear hollowly only to go back on his word.

"I'll think about it," he says, because he can promise to do that much.

Lucifer's look is tainted with a disappointment that says he's read Sam's reasoning loud and clear between the lines.

The painting is quite large, beautifully coloured and shadowed, and Sam is instantly swept away by it. It's what Lucifer had dragged them both out of bed to show him, and now that he's laid eyes on it Sam has absolutely zero regrets about having to get up. His eyelids are still drooping shut on him, but he'd rather stay here for another hour just looking than go and sleep.

The grey backs of a garrison of mechanically-postured angels face out from the lower right side, wings fading into the darkness that shrouds them. Before them a crowd of wretched-looking souls, faces torn by fear and agony, await their holy smiting. The central figure, though, is so bright he glows, wings arching up into the sky behind him, hands outstretched. His face is Sam's, set with such defiance that even Sam himself finds it intimidating. Because he knows to look for it, Sam finds the Goya references without much difficulty at all—it's the heavenly Napoleonic Wars, with an angelic firing squad and the fallen angel as martyr; a biblical _Executions on the Third of May 1808_.

"It's incredible," he breathes.

"Thank you," replies Lucifer. "It's also yours."

"What?"

"We made it together; it's both of ours," Lucifer shrugs, like that's a normal attitude for an artist to have. "And it pleases me to be able to share it with you. _Mi pintura es su pintura_."

"I—uh, thank you," Sam struggles. It's unusually difficult to find the breath to speak properly as he keeps taking in new details, the pitch black roiling clouds above the cold pearly gates in the background, the textures of feathers and skin and the bloodied earth underfoot.

He tries. It's very like those times when Jess decided on some impractical new diet, already half-resigned to the fact that it would only last until the next bacon and egg burger became available, but still. He tries.

He soaks in the mounting anxiety for days on end, doesn't eat much and smokes a lot of cigarettes to compensate. It's felt like he's been slipping for months now, but the highs had become his only footholds and now he's just falling, a freefall into something darker than the darkness.

He finds himself standing in front of Lucifer's painting, the painting he'd told Sam belongs to both of them. He's not really sure why he's here—to reflect on that night, probably, and try to build the memory of it strong enough to pull him up. He looks at the figure of the Morningstar, the one with Lucifer's name and Sam's face, takes in the determined set of his jaw and wonders if Lucifer really sees that much strength in him. Sam's always considered himself capable, driven, but even he has never imagined himself to be in possession of that sort of invincible willpower. He tries to draw from it, the way the light in the painting emanates from that central figure with his arms splayed out like a challenge and like a crucifix and like the most furious gesture of questioning _why_, or maybe _why not_—Sam tries to imagine that, like this version of Lucifer does, he could shed his own light.

Brady had messaged Sam earlier to say he'd call him about possibly going out that night, so when Sam's phone rings he picks it up absentmindedly, not bothering to check who it is that's calling him.

It's a mistake.

"Hey," he says, and almost launches into a _So what are we doing tonight_ before the person at the other end speaks and knocks him dead.

"Hi Sam," says Dean's voice.

Sam doesn't say anything for a long moment, replays the two short words in his head until it seems like he'd just imagined them.

"You're not drunk again, are you?" asks that voice. "Because it's ten in the morning dude, even I'm usually classier than that."

"No, no, I'm not drunk," Sam manages, though for a second he does wonder if he's accidentally taken something to make him hallucinate. "But I think this would be easier to make sense of if I were."

Dean laughs. "So you really were trippin' balls when I called you last time, eh?"

The conversation back at the club with Brady and Ruby swims into a whole new sort of focus.

"I... I thought I was dreaming."

"You mean you thought I was a part of whatever acid trip you were on," says Dean, and he's right, but Sam isn't going to give it to him just like that.

...Or maybe he is, because he really doesn't know what else to say.

"So you're really not dead?" he asks, quiet, tentative, because saying it out loud will start to make it real, a possibility he can put some hope in, and if this is all a lie then it might be the one that knocks him down for good.

"Nope, not so much. I'll explain it all to you when I see you. Which is why I'm calling—I'm parked outside your apartment, but according to a lovely lady named Marissa—you have excellent neighbours, by the way—you're not living there anymore because the place _burned to a crisp_."

"Oh. Uh, yeah." He'd never told Dean about the fire and what had happened to Jess, had he? "I'm staying with friends now."

"Well, it's great to hear that little Sammy has friends. Could you give me an address, though? I could really use a nice shower."

Sam snorts out a laugh before he can help it.

"Sure, Dean." The name passes out of his mouth like something old and overly familiar, new and sacred at once—because that's what his brother is. His brother who had died but is, by some miracle, back with him again now.

And very close by, Sam realises with a jolt once Dean hangs up the phone. He's only a quarter of an hour away if he's outside Sam's old apartment, and he's on his way here now.

Sam throws on some jeans and one of his better shirts, tries to make himself look a little less like he can't remember the last time he slept. He examines his reflection in the bathroom mirror and notes that the dark bags under his eyes have bled out into rings that reach right up and around his eye sockets, seeming to pull his eyes back into them, wide and sunken.

"You look like hammered shit," he tells himself, as though acknowledging it could change anything.

When the doorbell goes, his nervous jitters turn to anxious paralysis. He makes himself move, wills the churning in his abdomen to calm itself.

He comes in sight of the door just in time to see Gabriel pull it open.

"Ooh, who are _you _here for?" Gabriel exclaims in one of the most indecent, greasiest tones Sam's heard from him yet. He hurries the rest of the way up the hall.

And there's his brother, with his spiked hair still especially short after being shaven, and his green eyes and old clothes and the necklace Sam had given him when they were both just kids.

"Dean," he says as the breath is blown out of him all over again.

"Sam," Dean strides forward and envelopes him in a hug like they haven't shared since Sam was the shorter brother. Dean doesn't let up for a long minute, and Sam gets the impression they're going to have a boatload of shit to work through.

"It's good to see you, man," he says.

"Yeah, Sammy. You too."

Dean showers for half an hour, then consumes half a loaf of bread, toasted with cheesy baked beans on top.

"So, are you going to explain this whole thing to me?" Sam asks when he's finally done ploughing through the food.

"Sure, but then you're going to do some explaining of your own."

"Fine."

"There were a group of us out doing some recon. It wasn't even supposed to be that exciting—but then this guy Alistair, total dick to begin with, goes and starts firing on us, his own people. I was at the front of the group and he was at the back. I caught one in my shoulder, that was it—but it was sheer dumb luck that I managed to get to cover before he put a second bullet in me, saw me finished off just like the others."

"Fuck," Sam breathes, because he's in the process of backpedalling from the Dean-is-dead element of his funk, but the fact remains that it was _that damn close_, and that will never cease to terrify him, will remain as a chill deep within him that will never thaw.

"I just hid out for a long time, stemmed the bleeding and went through what water I could get my hands on before moving on. Long story short, there was this guy who found me. I thought he was gonna kill me at first, he had this really intense look on his face like he was on a mission—but he didn't. He saved me. His name was Cas—he was a doctor, originally part of some sort of missionary group over there. He washed and stitched me up properly, even gave me his food to eat."

Sam fairly sure he's not imagining the way Dean's eyes light up when he talks about this 'Cas'. He's just never known his brother to talk that way about anyone, so he can't be certain of exactly what it means.

"It was nice, really nice, staying with him while I healed up, but obviously I couldn't stay forever. Had to get back, make sure my stupidass little brother didn't think I'd gone and died on him, you know. Had to tell the others what had really happened and make sure that Alistair wasn't still around pretending to be trustworthy."

"So this Cas," Sam presses. "Are you still in contact?"

He watches Dean tamp down a private little smile. "Yeah, I have a phone number. He's coming back to America to visit his sister in three months, so if he wants to maybe we'll meet up then."

Sam smiles. Dean's been through hell, he's not debating that, but he also seems to have come out with something positive. He could easily have lost more and won less from the experience. "That's cool. Maybe I'll get to meet him someday," he suggests.

"Yeah, maybe. He's kind of a total nerd, you'd like him I think," Dean goes on.

Sam thinks he'd probably like the guy who saved his brother regardless, but he doesn't say so, just nods along.

Dean looks haggard, and the buzz of the reunion seems to be wearing off, so Sam guides him to a room he's come to know as a spare. Blessedly, Dean crashes before he remembers to bring up any questions about what Sam's life has become.

Sam can't avoid the questions forever, he knows that, but that doesn't make him any more welcoming when they do arrive.

"So dude," Dean asks when they're stationed on the couch watching yet another episode of _Doctor Sexy_, "What's with you gettin' high? Not exactly the college experience I was expecting from you."

"I was going through a rough patch," Sam says, trying to sound as calm and disinterested as possible. It doesn't help that the cravings are physically shaking through him like hypothermia. Talking about the drugs when he can't have them is torturous.

"So what, you went with substance abuse as a solution? Way to learn from Dad's mistakes."

Dean's words are no louder than usual, but they're harsh and they hit Sam like a freight train. Worst of all is the fact that he's not sure he can deny that argument, much as he wants to yell about it until Dean backs down. That would only make him even more like John.

"You were _dead_, Dean," he says through tightly gritted teeth.

Dean turns to look at him, and deals the killing blow. "Yeah, and it didn't seem to make a whole lot of different to you whether I was alive or not when you ditched me and ran away."

"I'm sorry," Sam says, for every time he despaired that he could never look Dean in the face and apologise. "And I'm trying to quit," he adds, because it isn't even a lie. He'd probably almost literally kill for a baggie full of crystals, but he has been putting in some effort, even if he can't see himself holding out much longer.

Dean looks surprised—by the apology or the idea of Sam quitting, Sam isn't sure.

"I didn't know it was that serious, Sam," Dean says, and Sam realises that he's managed to say the least helpful thing despite his efforts to the contrary.

"It's not," he rushes to amend. "But still, I'm working on it."

He holds on one more day. It's the longest day in history.

Dean wakes him up at six thirty in the morning when he drops a frying pan, making an earth-shattering racket in the kitchen. As soon as Sam's groggy mind comprehends the situation he's rocketing out of bed and into his trousers, making it out to the kitchen _just _in time to prevent a very bed-headed, exceedingly grouchy Meg from slitting Dean's throat then and there with a steak knife. Gabriel arrives moments later and laughs at them all from his vantage point inside a pair of painfully bright pink and green boxer shorts.

Thus Dean learns the rules of Meg's kitchen, the first of them being _Just stay the fuck out for the sake of your testicles. _

"What are you all doing up so early?" a sweaty, breathless Lucifer asks when he comes in through the back door, home after his daily run.

"I could ask you the same question _every_ morning, bro," Gabriel yawns. "It's what, half past four in the morning!"

"Six," say Meg and Lucifer in unison, both sounding perfectly unimpressed.

"Everything before midday constitutes the asscrack of dawn in my book," Gabriel replies. "So I'm going back to bed now, if you losers don't mind." He throws an inquiring glance at Meg. "You coming, honey bunch?"

Meg shoots daggers back at him and looks around daring the rest of them to say a word, but she stalks off after Gabriel a moment later.

"Well that was interesting," Dean declares once the tension has eased somewhat.

"Welcome to the family," Lucifer deadpans.

Sam doesn't go back to bed, even though he's had a maximum of three hours' patchy sleep. Dean insists he's not tired, even though Sam can see his eyes drooping shut every few minutes, which means Dean's no doing as well as he's trying to convince Sam he is—which honestly isn't all that well to begin with.

"Not that it should need to be said," Sam tells him, just to make sure the offer is out there, "but if you want to talk about it—about anything—then you can talk to me. You know that, right?"

Dean tosses a hand up in Sam's direction and tells him he should exchange diaries with someone else who actually keeps one. It's no less than what he was expecting, but he does wish his brother wouldn't hem himself into the idea that getting things off one's chest isn't something a strong man is allowed to do.

Not far into the afternoon, Dean declares that he's going to the pub. He doesn't specifically invite Sam to come with him, and Sam doesn't particularly feel like it, so Dean goes off, no doubt to pick up some poor girl who's convinced he's a fighter pilot—although Sam supposes the whole recently-returned-soldier thing has genuine merit in that area.

It's really an impressively short amount of time after Dean leaves that Sam receives a message from him, saying something along the lines of, _Won't be home until tomorrow morning. Hot brunette named Jackie. Frat party tonight! _Sam snorts to himself before wondering if he ought to worry.

Not long afterwards Meg and Gabriel resurface, grab breakfast and explain to Sam on their way out the door that they're driving out to someplace Sam doesn't quite catch the name of for a weekend of something involving a waggle of Gabriel's eyebrows that Sam really doesn't want to investigate.

That leaves just Sam and Lucifer in the house, although Lucifer's been holed up in his room for most of the morning. The last Sam saw of him he was hauling a fresh bucket of fire engine red house paint down the hallway, along with a tatty drop sheet.

Sitting at the table with the book for his summer course, a _Theory of Capitalist Society _subject that caps off the politics subjects he's done over the past few years, Sam is dizzily alone with his thoughts. They feel too big and too small for his head at once, too loose and too tight, drowning and choking both. There's a warm breeze coming through the window that's open just a crack nearby, but he's all involuntary shudders under its breathy touch. The few words he manages to draw from the pages in front of him mostly make it all feel like a waste of time. The whole system is broken—why would he ever have thought he'd be able to make a difference, to fix it?

Why would he ever have thought he'd be able to change something that's become so ingrained and cyclical and central to the functioning of life?

He needs it. He's been hanging on to something, he can't even remember what, but he's slipped down one rung too far, far enough to see that really, the only way to get up is to give in. Every train of thought leads back to this place, spikes of craving triggered by the random and obscure as well as the obvious things. It's like a middle-school crush, the way it seems to permeate everything that touches his mind—and more than anything, it feels like inevitability.

Ruby's not here, so Sam weighs up his options. He could go out and try to find someone with something to sell, but he isn't sure where to start, or who to trust even if he does come across a lead. Alternatively, he could use his last scraps of cash on ingredients, take advantage of the all-but-empty house and attempt to home-make something that'll give him a little more bang for his buck.

He hits the hardware store first, then the supermarket and the pharmacy, picking up muriatic acid in the pool section, lye, engine starting fluid, pseudoephedrine tablets, eye droppers and coffee filters and distilled water and a stack of match boxes to scrape for red phosphorous. It chills him for a fleeting moment to think that these are the chemicals he'll be putting inside his body, _has _been putting inside his body, but the thought fades as he loads the goods into the trunk of his car and sets off home, promise and anticipation beginning to assuage the cravings.

He sets up in the kitchen, borrowing cups and spoons and Pyrex dishes from Meg's collection because she's gone road tripping somewhere and what she doesn't know hopefully won't hurt either of them. With the help of the internet and what chemistry skills he has left over from high school, Sam starts preparing the ethyl ether.

A door slams. There are footsteps in the hall. Sam doesn't have a prayer of hiding what he's doing in the mere seconds before whoever's coming arrives in the kitchen—he only has time to curse himself vehemently and hope it's Lucifer and not someone else arriving back early. After what Lucifer's told him about his own addiction Sam knows it's an incredibly shitty thing to hope for—but the fact remains that Lucifer is likely to be the most understanding by far.

But he's out of luck.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Meg stands in the doorway, absolute fury in her eyes as she takes in the sight of Sam and his setup of jars and dishes and match books half scraped of their striking pads.

Sam raises his hands as though in surrender. "It's not what it looks like," he tries, weakly.

"Huh," Meg snorts. "Well, that's just lucky, because what it _looks _like is you cooking _meth in my kitchen_."

There's really nothing more to say, no more excuses that he can think of to explain even half of this, so Sam just stays silent and cornered and waits for it.

"You absolute _imbecile_," Meg shouts. "I swear, for a smart guy you're the dumbest fuck I've ever met. You're damn lucky I forgot my wallet and had to come back here, because if you'd taken this any further Gabe and I'd have come home to find you stone cold on the fucking floor. You don't have _any idea _what you're dealing with here, who you're gonna piss off. Does Ruby know you're supplying yourself now? Because I sure as shit wouldn't tell her if I were you. She's happy to have you on her hook as a gullible little customer, but the minute you become anything other than a steady stream of cash into her hand..." Meg strides forward and backhands him across the face faster than he can react.

"I can be a nasty bitch when I want to," she continues ranting, as Sam clutches his jaw, "but my sister, she plays the long game. Laying down the lies and slowly twisting everything the way she wants it by making other people believe it's actually what _they _want—and she really doesn't care who it hurts. I bet you have no idea what really happened to Lilith, do you?"

Sam stands blankly under the barrage. "I know that she died," he says.

"Yeah," Meg spits out. "Yeah she did. But you don't have a clue about how or why, do you?"

Sam lets his silence speak for him again.

"Ruby's not some small-time dealer, Sam. She's not your friend who lends you a bit of the good stuff so long as you chip in. She plays in the big leagues, tangles with some bad sons of bitches. She and Lilith used to be in it together; if anything, Lilith was Ruby's boss. Then Ruby hatched some genius plan to frame one of their competitors—this guy that everyone called the king of the street corners, name of Crowley. The plan worked, but it got out to some of the wrong people who'd done it, and Crowley's dogs were baying for blood. So darling Ruby let them have Lilith's, served them up her own girlfriend's head to get them off her back."

What.

"_Ruby _killed Lilith?"

"Not with her own hands, but it was near enough. She freaking gift-wrapped and delivered her to Crowley's people, told them exactly where she'd be, what time."

Sam thinks of Ruby, Ruby of the soft and reassuring words, Ruby who's been so understanding this whole time...

"I don't believe you," he says.

But then he remembers the Ruby he first met, the one with the terrifying facial expressions who wielded a damn pool cleaning net like it was a sword and greeted him with a definitive _shoot first, ask questions later _strategy.

Meg's tone freezes over as she says, "Ultimately, that's going to be your problem."

Sam's got bags full of the raw ingredients for the meth his mind and body are rioting for, but no timely way to make them into the final product. Reluctant to actually throw them out, he takes what remains and shuts it away in the closet of his bedroom.

He drops to the floor and wraps his arms around his knees. Mentally, he catalogues his belongings.

He could probably get sixty dollars for his textbook, if he's lucky, but it'll definitely take a while to find a buyer and the rest of the course will be that much more difficult if he has to do all his study at the library. He could sell more of the Azazels' silver and china, but he's yet to find an alternate pawn shop to deal with. He needs his phone too much, he'd get next to nothing for his clothes or shoes and he really doesn't have much else left to his name.

Sam takes his ponderings into the art studio where Lucifer's _Third of May _painting leans up against the wall. Once again he looks into the finely blended oils like all the wisdom he seeks could be hidden somewhere amidst the chiaroscuro.

He's about to get up and go back to his own room when he realises that the solution is literally right in front of him.

He throws a sheet over the painting and hauls it out to his car.


	5. Futurism

The auction house is packed with all kinds of furniture and artworks. Sam wanders around trying to figure out who's running the joint and whether they're likely to get him something for Lucifer's artwork quickly.

He's looking over a hideous old family portrait when a clear, female voice cuts through from somewhere behind him.

"A fine example of American Primitive, wouldn't you say?"

Sam turns to see the source of the voice, an elegantly dressed woman with dark, sleek hair, descending a spiral staircase.

Sam actually remembers some mention of American Primitive style from some very brief dabblings in art history during his first year (largely at the insistence of Brady, who'd said it'd be good for meeting girls). There had been an artist called... Grandma Moses?—Sam's pretty sure that's right—but the sullen family portrait in front of him doesn't look anything like the liberal use of bright colours and the crooked, soft lines he recalls seeing in her work. No, this picture is pretty much the _opposite _of American Primitive. The dank colour scheme and sombre expressions of the subjects remind him far more of that _American Gothic_ painting—the one of the farmer and his wife, with the pitchfork standing up between them as they scowl out from amongst the dust, their likenesses captured in thin, slightly elongated lines.

"Well, I'd say it's more Grant Wood than Grandma Moses," he counters smoothly. "But then you knew that; you just wanted to see if I did."

"Guilty," says the woman. She introduces herself as Sarah Blake, and Sam doesn't miss the admiring slide of her eyes as she appraises him. He's still got hollows for eyes, but besides that Sam thinks he's cleaned himself up reasonably well for this occasion.

"I'm looking to sell a painting, a work by an artist friend of mine—very Goya, fascinating Biblical themes, captivating execution—I was wondering if you would be interested in that opportunity."

Sarah laughs. "Boy, you really are a salesman. I can see why your friend sent you to spruik this work of his, or hers."

Sam ducks his head slightly, shrugs modestly. "He's just a little bit shy about showing his work to people—awkward about trying to talk himself up, even though there's no need; everything I've said so far has just been plain honesty."

"Well," Sarah considers, "this isn't usually how we work here, but I may be able to talk my dad into making an exception if this artwork is _truly _as incredible as you say it is."

Sam smiles widely, "Great. I have the canvas out in my car right now, if you'd like to come out and take a look?"

"Sure thing, lead the way."

"Oh Sam," Sarah says slowly, as she stares into Lucifer's painting. "This is... who is this friend of yours? Would I know of him?"

"I can't say for sure, but I think it's unlikely. He goes by Lucifer."

"And yet the figure of Lucifer in this piece is played by you. You two must be close."

Sam scratches at the back of his neck. "Yeah, we are."

"You know, I'd love to know a bit more about him," Sarah nudges. "Maybe we could meet up again and you could tell me?"

It's far too much like a date to be ideal, but it does also sound like a nice solid path into this market; one he can use again if he should ever need to. Sarah is a beautiful woman—Sam's not blind, nor has he been deaf to the knowledge that pours out of her, or the desire to help, to do the right thing, that he catches in her actions. If things were different, Sam would be leaping at the prospect of taking her out—but things _aren't _different, and if Sarah knew the real story behind his being here he knows she wouldn't want him at all.

"Sure," he says, forcing a smile. "That sounds good, he'll be pleased to hear someone's interested! How about you give me your number, I'll call you and we can set up a time and place. Here's mine," he snatches up a pen that's lying on a table alongside a notepad of some sort of inventory. "So you can call me when the painting sells."

"You sound so certain that it will."

He's not that certain, really, but he doesn't want to sound desperate, to make Sarah suspicious.

"If that thing," Sam gestures to the creepy Wood-esque family portrait, "can sell, then I'm pretty sure Lucifer's painting will."

It does sell.

Sarah calls Sam to let him know, and they set up their dinner date for that night so that the payment can be organised. Sam realises half an hour before he's due to be out the door that his wallet is all but empty. He might have money coming in at this meeting, but it's unlikely to be cash, so it won't help him pay for dinner.

He finds Dean sitting on the couch with his laptop, headphones in, which could easily mean that Sam _really_ doesn't want to see what's going on on the screen.

"Hey," he says, looming over his brother until he removes one of the ear buds and looks questioningly up at him. "Do you have some cash I could borrow?"

Dean looks sceptical. "How much?" he asks, tone carefully blank. Sam's not a fan of that tone, the one that sits somewhere between Good Cop and Bad Cop and lets you know that which way it bends is entirely dependent on how helpful you're going to be.

The restaurant where Sarah's made their reservation is a nice place. Sam hasn't been there before, but he'd considered it while loosely planning his proposal to Jessica. It's a _nice _place.

"Uh, maybe two hundred?"

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," Dean puts his ear bud back in and returns his attention to whatever he's watching.

"Please, Dean," Sam begs, and he knows his face is doing the puppy eyes thing Dean always teases him about, but it's genuine, damn it. "I'll pay you back tomorrow, I swear."

"Look Sammy, I don't even _have_ two hundred bucks in cash out right now. But that doesn't mean I'd give it to you if I did. What do you want this money for, huh? More drugs? I'm not feeding your addiction."

"It's not for drugs," Sam says, exasperated.

"Then tell me what it is for."

"I'm—" Sam begins, before realising that the money might be for dinner, but at the end of the day, drugs _is _what it's for. Drugs is what everything's for, of recent times. He can't explain to his brother that he's going on a date with someone other than the guy he's kind of in a relationship with, so that he can accept payment for a painting he stole from that same guy and sold for drug money. "Never mind," he says.

He goes straight to Dean's room, where he finds his wallet jammed down the side of his still-mostly-packed bag. Dean hadn't been lying when he'd said he didn't have two hundred, but he does have one-fifty, which Sam pockets quickly.

There's a cough from the doorway behind him.

Dean doesn't say anything immediately, doesn't have to. Just the way he stands there looking down on Sam is more than enough.

"I'm sorry Dean, but I need this, I promise I'll pay it all back tomorrow," Sam tries.

"Yeah, well, I don't buy that. See, I _want _to trust you, but I just don't think I can. You won't tell me what you want this money for, but you have to see why I assume the worst, right? Either that or you really don't realise how far off the reservation you've gone, how far removed from the kid I helped raise you are right now.

"So you can do the right thing, put that money back and walk away like the Sam I used to know would do, or you can take it and steal from your own brother. It's up to you—but I can tell you right now that if you steal from me, right in front of my face, I will not sleep until I see your ass thrown into rehab, you got that?"

Sam can feel himself collapsing inward under the hard expression on Dean's face, the force of his words, but he steels himself. He hasn't got time, and he hasn't got a choice, and he knows that even if he sets the money down right now it won't change things enough to undo the breaks in both of them. Dean's the sort of guy who won't believe that Sam's fixed until he had personally gone about fixing him.

He puts on his best attempt at an unconcerned expression. "Fine," he says, confirms his guilt, and pushes through the doorway past Dean and out towards the street.

As he starts his car and drives away, Sam is painfully aware that this shitstorm is not the kind that will have passed by the time he gets back, but the kind that will fester while he's gone.

He's only a couple of minutes late to the restaurant, thankfully.

"Sam," Sarah greets him with a bright smile. She's dressed up and her hair is curled and Sam is reminded once again that she is beautiful. It makes him question the fact that he slid out from between Lucifer's legs this morning when he got up, and the fact that he will probably slide back into place between them when he returns home after this, and he doesn't know whose fault that doubt is.

"Sarah," Sam smiles in return, leans in to kiss her lightly on the cheek.

Everything on the menus is expensive, and Sam's ready to go with water and a side serving of garden salad when the waiter brings them the wine list. Jesus, he has a hundred and fifty dollars—cash which has and will continue to cost him much more than just its monetary value—and he's probably going to end up blowing all of it on drinks alone.

"I don't know about Romeo here," Sarah declares, "but I'll have a beer."

Sam flashes her a quick grateful smile but otherwise tries to keep the lid on his relief, seconding the beer order.

"So you sold the painting?" he asks, when the waiter leaves.

"Sure did. I put a photo of it on our website, rather than just leaving it at the mercy of the local community's auction-goers—and that was definitely a good idea, because within virtually no time we had a buyer. That's where it gets interesting, though. The woman who contacted me—Abbey Donne was the name she used, but I tried looking her up and I don't know whether that's a real name or a pseud, which is all pretty mysterious—said she was putting together an exhibition on religious art of the twenty-first century; a range of stuff, subversive and postmodern and otherwise. Long story short, she's given you seven grand for it."

"Holy shit," Sam says, slightly too loudly. An aged woman with a three-strand black pearl necklace hanging down over the skin flaps of her throat coughs petulantly in his direction. "Holy shit," Sam repeats, more quietly.

Sarah smiles at him with genuine excitement. "I know!" she says. "_And _she wants Lucifer to come and see the exhibition. I know you said he wasn't that confident, but I'm sure he wouldn't have to speak or anything unless he wanted to. I told her I'd ask his agent for contact details and pass them along to her."

Sam's smile must falter, because suddenly Sarah's isn't as radiant. Sam finds himself altogether too disappointed about having caused it to fade.

"That's cool," he tries, "would I just be able to talk to him about it first, though? Make sure he's okay with it?"

Sarah still looks concerned, but she nods, "Of course."

Impulsively, Sam reaches out across the table to take one of her hands in his. "Thank you," he says sincerely.

Sarah seems to debate something momentarily. She glances down at their hands, then back up at Sam, and finally asks, "Is this something that could work? Am I right in thinking there's something here?"

Sam should say no, the answer as easy as air to come by because he's sleeping with someone else, living with that someone else. For all intents and purposes he has a boyfriend, is someone's boyfriend—not that he has ever actually thought about their arrangement in those particular terms before. They feel strange.

So he should say no, there's no hope of anything with Sarah because he has Lucifer, needs Lucifer, doesn't know what would happen or where he'd be if he tried to up and leave him.

But he'd be lying if he said he didn't like Sarah, didn't want Sarah, and Sam's done more lying lately than he has speaking his mind.

"Yeah," he says. "There's something here."

Sarah regards him carefully. "Why do I sense that there's a _but _coming?"

Sam sighs. "Because there is. My life is kind of a mess right now; for starters I had a girlfriend, she—uh, I lost her. And now Lucifer and I..."

"You're more than just friends," Sarah fills in. "I had my suspicions, to be honest, looking at that painting. He paints you like he really knows you, inside and out."

"I—sorry," Sam says awkwardly. "I'm in a really confusing place right now."

"It's okay," Sarah waves a dismissive hand, sweeping away a little of the tension. "This is unusual for me; the first date I've been on in a long time. I've had some struggles of my own. No rush and no pressure, is all I'm saying."

It's mostly small talk after that, and the night flows easily enough. They order cheaply from the menu and Sarah lays down the payment for her half of the bill with a look that just dares Sam to protest. At the end of the night, Sarah slips him an envelope that Sam knows contains a cheque for seven thousand dollars, and he tucks it carefully into the inside pocket of his jacket. He kisses her cheek again as a goodbye, and promises to call her soon, once he's asked Lucifer about the exhibition.

It's not going to be a good talk, having to tell Lucifer that Sam's sold his painting, but he can only hope that this news will lighten the burden a little bit.

He cashes the cheque on the way home.

When he arrives at the house to find Ruby lounging around out the back like she hasn't been inexplicably absent for over a week, Sam silently but fervently thanks god, before considering that perhaps god doesn't have much to do with any of this. He hands over the money he has left over from dinner, doesn't even have to ask for what it is he wants, because Ruby already knows. He lights up and settles in for an afternoon of blissful surrender to his vices.

He's careful to save plenty for later, too, stashing the bag of it in the top drawer of his bedside cabinet.

He's having oatmeal when Dean storms in and drags him right out of his seat. He almost knocks the bowl over in the process, spoon clattering to the floor beneath the table, but Dean's on a mission and he pays the cutlery no mind.

"Pack your things, Sam," he says, voice hard. "We're leaving."

When Sam neither speaks nor moves, Dean adds at a yell, "_Now_."

"Jesus Dean, what are you on about?" Sam hisses and struggles out of his brother's grip.

"_This_ is what I'm talking about!" shouts Dean, holding up the half-emptied bag of meth.

_Fuck._

"I go looking to borrow some goddamn deodorant and I find class A drugs? This is not what I meant when I told you to loosen up and have some fun at college, Sam; this is suicide."

Sam figures he's cornered as far as the concrete facts are concerned, but he can still argue his reasons.

"What, like you going to _war_ wasn't? Dean, you almost died. For all I knew, you did die. What gives you the right to offer up your life and then lecture me about this?"

_"Because I fought out there! It wasn't me shooting at myself! You're not fighting this at all—that's the difference, damn it."_

"I _am _fighting it, Dean, but every recovery has relapses."

"Yeah, well, it looks like you've been having plenty of those," Dean replies, sounding about as bitter as Sam has ever heard him. "And we're still leaving. These people, where have they been in all this? Encouraging it? Standing by and watching? They're not your friends, man."

"They're the reason I even _thought _about stopping, Dean, the reason I'm even trying. And like it or not, _you _arethe reason I started it to begin with."

Dean looks utterly betrayed. "Don't pin this on me, Sammy," he says more quietly, deflating as the fight leaves him. Sam immediately feels like a terrible, terrible person; Dean wasn't even here and he couldn't have been expected to foresee any of this—and yet deep down Sam knows his brother will still find it all too easy to blame himself. He can hurl harsh words at Dean when he's being confrontational in return, but not when he's only attacking himself at the same time. "I was just doing my job, Sam," Dean says.

"I know. I'm sorry. It isn't your fault—I just... it was hard for me. Jess was gone, and then all of a sudden you were gone too, and the drugs helped me through some of that. And the people here—Lucifer, even Meg—they helped me through the rest. They're looking out for me more than you know."

"Okay," Dean says, and he just sounds defeated. "Truth is I just wish I could've been here to watch out for you, you know?"

"I know. But you have to have your own life, Dean."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, and a real bang-up job I've done of that."

There's something dark and dangerously wet surging in Dean's eyes, and Sam is suddenly filled with the conviction that there's something else—perhaps even multiple somethings—going on here.

"What aren't you telling me, Dean?" he asks, slowly, the verbal equivalent of approaching a wounded animal.

"Nothing," Dean lies—Sam knows perfectly well what his dishonesty looks like.

"I mean it, Dean. Tell me what's wrong or so help me I will tie you to this chair and wring it out of you."

"Alright, alright," Dean relents. He wipes a hand across his face and Sam wonders if he's actually crying—he knows better to draw attention to it, though. "So, uh. That guy I told you about, Cas?"

Sam nods encouragingly.

"He and I were kind of... we were close. Real close. I mean, he saved my life, but it was more than that. He just seemed to see good in me where I didn't even feel like there was any left—and then it was like that good _appeared_, just because he believed so damn hard in it. He stitched me up, but he also sort of put me back together different. Remade me better than I was."

"You loved him," Sam breathes, a little awestruck at hearing his brother speak about anyone like this. "And he loved you."

Dean half-shrugs. "I wouldn't necessarily put it that way," he says, which is so weak a denial it's practically an announcement.

"So what happened? You said he'd be coming out here in a few months?"

"Three months."

"That's good, isn't it?" Sam says, slightly confused. It's not like Dean to be this messed up about something that doesn't actually seem all that tragic.

"Yeah, yeah it's fine. I've waited longer for less just fine."

"So what's the real problem, then?"

Dean goes cold again. "What real problem," he says, and it doesn't sound like a question at all.

Sam pushes harder. "I know you don't get torn up over things that aren't really serious, Dean. But unless you've been transformed into a lovesick teenage girl, something else is clearly bothering you."

If questioning Dean's stoicism doesn't work, Sam's not certain that anything will. It's kind of a low blow to issue when he's already so down, but Sam is at least rewarded with an answer.

Even if that answer makes his fists itch to go a round with a solid brick wall.

"I went home, to stay with Dad," Dean says. "I—I should never have told him, but I just... it was the best thing I had, y'know? Something that actually made me happy, made me feel like the best version of myself, and I wanted Dad to know me like that. Plus I figured he'd be glad enough to see me back alive to overlook his reservations. I..." Dean trails off, blinks hard. "I was wrong."

Sam's skin is crawling with the sort of rage he's always associated with John Winchester's hard-headedness and intolerance. It takes everything he has to remind himself that taking that anger out on or even around Dean is the worst possible thing he could do right now.

Once he has a hold on his rage, he dives forward and hugs his brother. Dean doesn't even try to protest, just sniffs against Sam's shoulder and clings back, and it's a testament to the fact that John may have damaged Dean as a kid, but he's really broken him this time.

"He said it would've been better if I'd just stayed dead," Dean mumbles, messy and barely audible, and Sam crushes him impossibly tighter against his chest rather than even trying to articulate everything he has to say to that.

The moment Sam sees Lucifer again is the moment that he finally knows, _knows _and stops trying to dispute that fact that he's been in the process of making a colossal mistake for some time now. The painting, _god_, the artwork that the man had poured so much time and effort and feeling into and then given to Sam to share in... he's squandered so much trust. And all for what—one more hit? Dean has confiscated the rest of the meth, probably flushed it—so now Sam has nothing but a bundle of identical bank notes to show for the most elaborate, unique gift he's ever been given.

Still, he's feeling so many things all at once that it isn't exactly impossible to let his anger towards his father rise up and eclipse the guilt.

He slams Lucifer against the wall of the hallway with an almighty crack, and fastens his mouth down over Lucifer's, invading and plundering it. Lucifer allows this; he doesn't go limp or pliant, but he doesn't protest or resist either. Sam likes that he is always present, involved; never passive. Rough hands clench in Sam's hair, and he delights in the sharp spikes of pain that tighten in his scalp.

Lucifer groans when he pulls away. "Something on your mind?" he raises a brow.

"Mhm," Sam grunts, open-mouthed against Lucifer's neck, all tongue and bruising teeth.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not yet."

Lucifer seizes Sam's shoulders and takes advantage of the element of surprise to switch them so that it's Sam's spine jammed up against the plaster.

"Good," he says, securing Sam with a hand on either side of his head and a knee pressed firm between his legs.

Sam gasps at the hot jolt the pressure triggers.

"Let's see if we can't work out some of that frustration," Lucifer says, voice so silken and tempting that Sam thinks he might have succumbed to it even if he hadn't been planning on exactly this all along.

"What was it that had you so aggravated before?" asks Lucifer, tugging the sheets away from Sam's side so that he can wrap himself in some sort of sheet-hogging cocoon.

"Dean told our father about this man he's in love with," Sam explains, and it's lucky that he's simply too worn out for irrepressible physical violence, because he's not sure he'd be able to get through this explanation otherwise. "It went badly."

"That's terrible," Lucifer says, with the purest sincerity—and of course, he knows exactly how terrible it can be. "He's lucky to have you, Sam."

Sam sighs. "I'm a mess, though. I'm another problem he has to deal with right now."

Lucifer shakes his head. "Every human is his own mess," he says wisely. "But believe me when I say your support is worth enough for you both to overcome whatever you set your minds to. There is nothing as debilitating, as soul-destroying, as loneliness."

Sam plants a sloppy kiss on Lucifer's mouth to distract him while he steals back the bedclothes.

Sam doesn't see Dean around much for a few days. It's hardly a coincidence; he knows that from the number of times he's caught sight of Dean's back leaving rooms as Sam enters them, or heard the heavy steps of Dean's boots nearby. He hears Dean laughing with Gabriel as the television blares, but by the time he makes it to the TV room only Gabriel is left sprawled out over the couch.

It's Dean's typical hangover from their emotional conversation, coupled with distrust and disappointment, and there's really nothing more corrosive than that in the Winchesters' books.

Sam's turning to leave when Gabriel pipes up with,

"He's not going to budge, you know."

Sam pauses. "I know," he replies, even though really he's still waiting, hoping, that Dean _will _give an inch or two, will try to see things from his perspective.

"Ha, do you?" Gabriel asks, and a stranger might have mistaken his expression for amused, careless, but Sam's in on the fact that while jokes might be a coping mechanism for dealing with family drama around here, nobody's really laughing.

Sam seats himself heavily on the corner of the lounge chair.

"Hey," Gabriel complains, but moves his feet out of the way to make room anyway.

"I don't know what to do," Sam says, not liking how small and vulnerable the words sound out in the air.

"Don't know what to do, or don't know how to do it?"

Sam considers for a moment. "Maybe both."

"Quit lying to me, kiddo. You know what needs doing. There are only two choices in front of you, and neither of them is Do Nothing, so you need to nut up and take some responsibility for yourself. Either you keep digging yourself this hole and inevitably wind up buried somewhere deeper than you could ever climb out of, with nobody to lend you a hand—or you can get clean and maybe live past thirty."

Gabriel can be crass and irritating but Sam has to appreciate the fact that he's still trying to help him, still trying to nudge him closer to learning his lesson, however unpleasant it is. At this stage, Sam's admitting to himself more and more, it's not even the teacher that's being harsh; it's just the truth.

"Yeah," Sam sighs, "you're right."

Gabriel has the rare decency not to gloat about it.

"What's it going to be then, eh?" he asks.

Sam almost gets sidetracked by wondering whether it's a deliberate Clockwork Orange reference but he bites back the diversion at the last second, because it just isn't the time. This is the million dollar question; the one with the answer that's as plain as day but might as well be buried in the centre of the Sun for all that it feels unattainable.

"I can't," Sam gets out, and Gabriel's expression withers for a moment, until Sam finishes; "I can't keep doing this."

It's true, and blatantly obvious when he lays it out—the drugs aren't the medicine anymore, they're the sickness; they aren't numbing the pain of losing people but _causing _him to lose them. There are no reasons for doing them anymore, no tenable excuses.

And yet the prospect of it still feels like committing to rip himself apart.

Gabriel nudges his hip lightly with a socked foot. "Got it in one. If you can really put your faith in that statement then, believe it or not, the rest of it is the easy part."

"Really?"

"Hell yeah; denial's a crazy bitch and you're never gonna get anywhere until you tell her to fuck off, not even if the other ninety-five percent of your heart's in it. You need a full tank of motivation to get through. I can't pretend that this road isn't still going to suck ass, though; you're not choosing between something crappy and something nice, here. Whichever way you go's going to get bumpy—the difference is all in where you end up."

"Why are you saying all this?" Sam asks. "Helping me, I mean?"

A shadow passes over Gabriel's face. He says grimly, "Because I wasn't here to say it to my own brother."

Dean actually breaks the silence first. It's not really out of forgiveness, but it's still a comfort when he leans in through the door of Sam's room and asks if he can come in.

Sam nods. "Sure." He shuts the lid on his laptop and the page he's been reading about recovery from crystal meth addiction.

Dean doesn't sit, just paces awkwardly beside Sam's bed.

"I'm sorry Dean, I—" Sam starts, but Dean cuts him off.

"Not now," he grumbles. "Not that, not now."

Sam is puzzled. "What, then?"

Dean paces some more before he finally seems to find the words, short and sweet though they turn out to be.

"Cas is here," he says.

It's not what Sam's expecting, but right now that's mostly a good thing. An awesome thing, if it means the arrival of the guy who not only saved his brother's life but managed to actually get through to him enough to become a fixture, or at least someone Dean _wants _to be a fixture, in his life.

"That's great," Sam smiles, cautiously because Dean still seems really worried. "Isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Dean rushes out, "but I don't just mean he's here, back in the US a few months early."

Sam knows that Dean sometimes has trouble with words, sometimes needs to be reminded that yes, he does need to continue using them in order to finish his explanation, so he provides the necessary shove.

"What do you mean, then, Dean?" he asks.

Dean's voice is low, like he's worried someone might be listening in. "I mean he's _here_. I gave him this address to send a damn postcard or something to, and _now he's on the doorstep_."

"Okay," Sam nods slowly, "so he's appeared kind of suddenly. Isn't it still good that he's here?"

"_No_," Dean's frustration is palpable. "I mean, yes, for me it's good—it's freaking great—but it's gotta mean something's wrong. He's got other places to be, y'know?"

"No, I don't really know," Sam says, unhelpfully according to the look Dean gives him. "But why don't you go and _answer the door_ so you can ask _Cas _about why he's here?"

Dean still looks like he's half frozen, a deer in the headlights, and Sam might even find it funny if the circumstances were wildly different.

"Right," Dean says, then stiffens. "Shit, he's been waiting out there for a long time."

"Go," Sam shoos him out the door, and Dean goes, still looking weirdly distracted.

Dinner has expanded to six of them now, with Lucifer, Meg, Gabriel, Sam, Dean and Cas all crammed around the little kitchen table. It seems kind of silly when there are other, larger dining tables in this oversized house, but Sam's not about to mention it and nobody else does either.

Nobody says much at all, actually. Knives and forks squeak against china and the noises of people chewing—Dean and Gabriel in particular—sound louder than they should.

Cas eats like he's been starving, savouring mouthfuls of steak as though they're manna from heaven. Sam sees Meg glance over at Cas every so often, obviously enjoying the fact that her cooking seems to be causing a reaction in him that's not altogether different from orgasm.

Sam had overheard Gabriel explaining that Dean's whatever-Cas-is was going to be staying with them as well, earlier, when Cas had just shown up. Meg had made a comment about her house not actually being a shelter for strays—but that had been before she had actually met Castiel. Once she'd run appreciative eyes up and down him a couple of times it was clear that any protests she made would be half-hearted.

The meal is kind of awkward, helped along by the fact that Dean knocks over a glass of water mid-way through. The clumsiness is something Sam hasn't seen in Dean since they'd run into Cassie, which Sam takes as proof that Cas really does have Dean hooked. Watching Cas lean across Dean to try and pat the tablecloth dry with his serviette, Sam can't help but notice that it runs both ways.

Sam's doing the dishes (Meg definitely still hasn't forgiven him for attempting to use her kitchen to cook meth, which he supposes is fair enough) when Cas catches him alone.

"Dean is in the shower," he explains awkwardly. Cas' voice sounds deep and dark, a sound that's almost too strong for his frame, but which matches his dark hair and stubbly face surprisingly well. "I thought I might offer a hand with washing up."

Sam's going to protest but Cas is already reaching for the towel, taking the first plate from the drainer and rubbing it dry. Knowing what it's like to need a distraction, just something menial to do with your hands, he doesn't try to stop him.

"Thanks," he offers instead.

"It is no trouble whatsoever. I also thought it might be good for us to become acquainted; I have heard so much about you."

"Sure thing," Sam agrees. Goodness only knows what Dean told Cas about him; they hadn't been speaking when Dean had gone overseas, so Sam can't expect it to be good. He can't expect Cas' first-hand impressions of him now to be any better, either. "I've heard a few things about you too."

"You are very precious to Dean," Cas says, pushing the towel down into the inside of a drinking glass. He says it like he might say that the sky is blue, that leaves are green, that human require oxygen to survive; like it's an easy fact. With Sam's head where it is right now he's not sure whether to take the statement and treasure it or tear it apart before he begins to hope too much.

"So are you," he deflects instead.

Cas smiles gently, like he wants to accept the compliment but isn't sure whether he's allowed. "Then we are both extraordinarily fortunate," he says. "Dean is an extraordinary person."

It warms Sam to hear someone talk to genuinely about Dean, to see that someone is finally appreciating him—but it hurts all the same because even though he's always known how lucky he was to have a brother that loved him, he's thrown Dean away more times than he can stand to count.

"Take care of him," Sam says. "I mean, you already have, but keep doing it, okay?"

"I will do everything in my power." Cas keeps drying off the plates and stacking them up on the bench like it's all just that simple, like there's just no question when it comes to Dean.

"So, uh, not that it isn't great to meet you, but what brings you here all of a sudden?"

Cas frowns, and for a minute Sam worries that he's overstepped, but then the expression smooths over again and Cas replies, "Honestly, I had been impatient to return to this country for some time. Meeting your brother prompted me to do so. As for why I am _here_, in this house... my reasons are not dissimilar to Dean's."

Cas' tone grows bitter at the end there, and Sam certainly can't blame him.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. I made my own choices. I went away to escape my family—they were controlling and disapproved of many ideas I entertained about life, the questions and doubts I had about their ways of thinking. Moving away to be a missionary doctor gave me a title which satisfied their ideals from afar, and allowed me to use my medical skills to help people. The Castiel they bragged about to their friends at church was never really me, and when I returned to them in the flesh they were confronted by that fact."

It's a familiar story, too familiar, and Sam still hasn't totally figured out how he's supposed to respond when somebody tells it to him. What he does know is that with a story like that, Cas is on the same page as Dean and everybody else here.

It's been a week since Sam's date with Sarah, and he still hasn't talked to Lucifer about the painting. Sarah's politely reminded him to please ask for Lucifer's contact details so that she can forward them to this art collector who's interested, but still Sam hasn't worked up the nerve to bring up what he's done. He wishes Lucifer himself would just start the conversation—Sam highly doubts that the artist hasn't noticed that his picture's been missing from its place—but Lucifer doesn't say a word about it.

They still sleep together, sometimes because they're in the mood for a little bodily contact and sometimes just because Cas is sleeping in Sam's old room now, since apparently he and Dean are both refusing to be the first to admit to the fact that they both clearly want each other. Sam supposes that things feel different worlds away in the middle of a war than they do in the slow turn of the everyday, where it isn't life or death and adrenaline and hurt-comfort. Whoever makes the first move here won't have any of those excuses to hide behind, and clearly neither of them wants to fuck it up.

Sam doesn't particularly enjoy fucking things up either, though he's proven to be exceedingly good at it.

When Sarah sends him a second polite request for those contact details and the permission to pass them along, Sam gives himself a pep talk, fails to be convinced, does a couple hundred push-ups and pull-ups to distract himself, and heads off to find Lucifer while the blood's still rushing and he can cling to the feeble glow of endorphins.

Lucifer is painting the kitchen wall green. It's dark green, forest green, a nice colour. He likes the way it seems to change depending on whether it's rolling on over the white wall paint or the black patches, the pale background showing how dark the colour is while the black one brings out the green, highlighting the fact that it isn't actually quiteblack.

Sam goes to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water even though he's not thirsty. He needs to do something with his hands, needs to hold something, to hide behind something even if it's only a drinking cup.

"Something up?" Lucifer asks.

"No," Sam's denial is reflexive. "I mean, yes."

Lucifer just waits.

"It's about your painting."

"I have many paintings."

So this is how he's going to play it. "_Our _painting, then. The one based on the _Third of May_, that you said belonged to both of us."

"I see," Lucifer's tone gives nothing away. "What about it, Sam?"

"I—" Sam stops briefly to wonder whether he's even physically capable of letting the words out. "I sold it."

Lucifer puts down his paint roller unhurriedly, turns towards Sam and just _looks_ at him. Sam wishes he'd yell or take a swing; he knows how to deal with those reactions. He tries his best to project all his regret loud and clear for him to read in his posture and his features.

"I understand," Lucifer says at length, and Sam, knowing Lucifer's story, gets that while he may understand that doesn't make it okay for even a second. It occurs to him in one horrible stab that where Lucifer once sold sex, Sam's gone and sold love.

It surprises him when Lucifer doesn't turn his back, doesn't leave the room or order Sam to do so, but rather walks right up to him, keeps his eyes fixed on him even when Sam can't stand to meet them with his own. He takes Sam's face between his hands, at least one of his fingers smearing wet forest green paint across the skin. Sam finds that he wants more of that sensation, wants to be transported back to when they were still exploring each other like it was an adventure, still discovering qualities they liked and drawing them out with colours and paintbrushes and brushes of fingertips and sex that Sam only realised was really lovemaking after it wasn't the same anymore.

Lucifer presses his mouth against Sam's, a request, and Sam opens to let him in, authorises him to take whatever Sam has left to give. His back is pushed up against a wall—a dry one, not one that Lucifer's been painting. Then they're moving again and Sam's being walked backwards down the hallway, tripping over his feet with nearly every step until they finally make it to the bedroom.

The sex is a raw, hurried affair of never managing to get close enough. The pleasure rises and crests but fails to wash out the rip tide of sadness that drags underneath.

"This isn't going to work out, is it?" Sam asks the ceiling when it's over. "Us?"

"I don't think so, no," admits Lucifer quietly.

"It was never going to, was it?"

"It doesn't matter now what could perhaps have happened, in some other life."

"I'm sorry." Because if Sam had just acted differently, made decisions other than the ones he's made... but really, he has no way of knowing whether they'd have fit together even then.

"As am I," Lucifer agrees.

It feels like both a tragedy and a revelation.

It takes Sam several tries to say it out loud, even once he's gone through the process of deciding it and making all the conflicting and hesitant parts of himself acquiesce.

"Help me," he says, quietly, the muscles in his face straining against an expression he doesn't recognise the feeling of but which threatens to overwhelm him and leave him laughing or crying or some senseless combination thereof.

"What?" asks Dean, turning an ear towards Sam like he hasn't heard him at all.

"I'm asking for help," Sam says, and the repetition doesn't really make it any easier.

Sam catches sight of his reflection in the window, and even without the depth and detail of an actual mirror he can see how gaunt he looks, can see just how comprehensively this darkly needy _thing _occupies him. It reminds him with bizarre clarity of the talks he'd had in health class all the way back in school about eating disorders, the way they distorted sufferers' perceptions of their own bodies. Sam hasn't just been being optimistic about the state of himself, not really; he's been lied to by his own head and he's believed it. It's beyond disconcerting to realise that he _still _can't trust the evidence of his own eyes, that he still doesn't know what Dean is seeing when he looks at him, whether it's anything like what Sam himself sees. He'd stepped on the bathroom scales purely on a whim and found that pounds had vanished, unaccounted for by his own observations.

"Please," he says. "I want to get past this, and I mean it this time, but I can't do it alone."

Dean seems to finally believe him, because he stands up, puts a hand on Sam's shoulder in a gesture that is at once both small and colossal.

"Okay Sammy," he says, meets Sam's eyes. "Okay. We're gonna help you. We'll make this better."

For someone who avoids research like it's toxic, Dean dives very readily into the internet's pool of rehab information. Sam's already looked through most of what Dean comes up with, but he knows that telling him as much won't make any difference. Dean will go about things exactly the way he wants to for his own peace of mind, and for once Sam has no issues with that. Whatever it takes to keep Dean on his side will be worth it.

It's sitting at the table reading material of this kind that Meg finds them.

"Oh thank fuck," she says loudly over Sam's shoulder when she leans in and sees the title of the website he's on.

Then she drags a chair out, sits down at the head of the table, in between Sam and Dean where they sit opposite one another, and takes control of the whole situation.

"You can stop wasting your time shopping around," she announces, "because I know a place. I can pull some strings and have you in as soon as you want. It's a nice place, too; pretty gardens and all that. You'll love it."

Sam's grateful, of course, but he's also fairly certain that he can't afford 'a nice place', even with Dean's help. Dean's even contacted Bobby, who Sam hasn't seen in years, and convinced him to chip in. It's actually been kind of awesome to see his brother moving around with a sense of purpose again, even if that purpose has to be cleaning up another family mess. Sam supposes that that's second nature to Dean after the way they grew up; familiar enough for him to do it in his sleep and, in a totally messed up way, to make him feel somewhat normal.

"We're operating on a budget, sweetheart," Dean butts in. "Sammy's not exactly going to be bunking with Lindsay Lohan, tragic though that is."

Meg snorts. "Look, can we just pretend for a minute that you're not a pair of complete idiots and be reasonable about this? I've got money just sitting around, and for the most part it's no good at buying any of the really important things. What it _can _do is help out a friend. You're a good guy, Sam—like, sickeningly good, underneath those troubles of yours. And if you refuse this then I'll just slap you around until you do, because I'm not repeating any of the sappy shit you just heard me say, but I'm also not taking no for an answer. Got it?"

"Um," says Sam.

"Good," Meg claps her hands together. "We done here?"

"No, wait," Dean stops her when she goes to stand up.

Meg doesn't give him any space to argue. "If it makes you feel better, I have plenty of handy-man type work that needs doing, and you seem like a guy who might be competent at that."

Dean swallows whatever he was going to say and nods, like he does in fact recognise that refusing this would be a doubly dumb idea when it's valuable help that Sam could really use and rejecting it would only cause offense.

"What needs doing?" he asks.

Meg grins. "Well, there's a shitload of dust to be cleaned up, for starters. A fucking gigantic garage sale to be had, walls to be repainted in boring conservative colours, furniture and boxes to be moved once this place is sold."

What. "You're selling the house?"

Meg stands up, lifts her hip so that she's perched on the edge of the table. "Sure am," she replies, looking rather pleased with herself. "Gabe and I just bought a sweet little bakery, apartment above the shopfront and everything. We'll bake the most ridiculous crap anyone's ever seen, end up eating ninety percent of the stock ourselves, and probably end up accidentally burning the whole place down—but hey, it'll be fun. We could all use some of that."

As well as she retains her eternally nonplussed air, Sam can see that Meg's happy, that she's excited about this, and he's excited for her too.

"That's awesome," he says. "We'll have to visit."

"Yeah you will," Meg's tone makes it clear that he'll be held to that promise. "And no freebies for you, we'll need a couple of actual customers."

Sam's eaten Meg's cooking for months now and he can safely say that whatever she and Gabriel concoct will be stellar.

He feigns injury. "Not even a friendly discount?"

Meg laughs, and it's such an optimistic sound that Sam can't help but feel like maybe, with these people around him, things will turn out alright after all. "We'll see, Winchester. We'll see."

Ruby hasn't been around for a considerable while now, but Sam's wondered about her silently rather than risking sounding like he's after more drugs by asking.

In the end Dean does it for him.

"Where's the demon bitch been lately?" he asks, eloquent as ever, at the breakfast table.

Meg doesn't even bat an eyelid, just answers, "She's on an extended vacation with our parents in Australia."

It's not the answer Sam was expecting. "How did that come about?" he asks, genuinely curious.

Meg's smile is full of teeth. "Oh, I suggested it," she says simply.

Sam can feel his eyebrows hiking up towards his hairline, and they put his questions for him.

"What, you doubt my ability to make threats?" Meg asks, twirling her butter knife deftly between her fingers in a way that suddenly makes Sam feel surprisingly insecure.

"No, not really," he decides.

"Smart boy. See, Mother and Father will keep Ruby in check down under; they're really not as forgiving as I am. Neither are any of the contacts I put on speed dial for use in the event that my dear sister ignored my helpful recommendation. Things had been going downhill, and then Lilith died and it really had to stop. Hopefully with a fresh start, it will."

Considering the way Sam used to crave the very sight of Ruby, knowing what she brought with her, he's remarkably devoid of emotion upon hearing that she's halfway across the world and, for all intents and purposes, completely gone from his life.

Gradually, people find their ways forward; Meg and Gabriel moving out and selling the house seems to have been a sufficient trigger for Dean and Castiel, who sneak out together on a couple of consecutive weekends before returning one afternoon with the announcement that they've rented themselves an apartment. Cas has a job interview at a nearby medical practice, and Dean's talking about getting into police work. Sam sees them together, their lives falling into place around each other, and it's almost easy to forget, just momentarily, that his is still in shards around him. They tell him that there's a spare room at their place if he ever wants to crash—and even if burdening them more is the last thing he wants to do, it's wonderfully reassuring just to know it's there.

Sam and Lucifer don't sleep together again after that night. Lucifer does crack a small smile when Sam tells him what his artwork sold for, though, and even slips into a full-blow grin while he dictates his email address to Sarah over the phone. He and Sam move around each other with little friction, maybe even more smoothly than how they did when they were together. There's history there, yes, but none of the tension that comes with uncertainty. There's no anticipation or anxiety left because they've accepted that they're done—and the ease with which they shift into the patterns of friendship serve to reassure Sam that while what happened between them was sad and wrong and broken by the end, they did something right in letting the pieces lie where they fell, not scrabbling at jagged edges and trying to fit them back together, only to damage them further. Sam doesn't know what they might have been in a different life, but he takes Lucifer's advice and tries not to ponder it too deeply; this is what they are now, and what they are now is what matters.

Sam wanders out to put on some coffee one morning and Lucifer's sitting at the table in his sweaty running gear, tapping away at the keys of his laptop with a huge, unabashed smile on his face. At first it feels like he's intruding on a private moment, but when Lucifer takes notice of Sam he simply turns that great grin on him.

"What's got you in such high spirits this morning?" Sam asks as the water for his coffee boils.

"I received an email," Lucifer says, like that's an adequate explanation.

"From..?"

"Abbey Donne," Lucifer replies, clearly aiming for blasé but failing, what with having to practically choke down his excitement in order to get the syllables out. Sam knows that Lucifer's been checking his inbox fairly religiously ever since he spoke to Sarah, and now that he's finally got a response it seems that things are even better than either of them had dared expect.

"What'd she say?" asks Sam eagerly, forgetting about the coffee and hurrying over to sit beside Lucifer at the table.

"Not only was she very impressed with the painting," Lucifer savours every word of the success he's wanted forever and now finally managed to grasp. The sense of almost-disbelieving wonder with which he receives positive feedback never fails to hearten Sam. "And not only does she plan to show it at her exhibition, but she wants to commission more work from me."

"That's fantastic," Sam says, and really it's so far beyond fantastic that he doesn't even know the word for it.

"_And_," Lucifer continues, "she runs a small art school in association with her gallery in Detroit, and she's asked me to teach a class there." At this revelation Lucifer sounds a little fearful. Sam imagines that going from someone who'd never made it to art school to someone who's _teaching _at one is going from zero to sixty pretty fast.

"You're gonna be amazing," he says, tries to flood the words with exactly how much he means it.

"I'm going to Detroit," Lucifer breathes, in astonishment.

"Yes you are."

Sam reaches over and hugs him tightly—in congratulations but also with the abrupt realisation that his opportunities to do so are numbered now. It's not like he can't visit Lucifer in Detroit, not like he won't try to, but it's also impossible to ignore the fact that it's thousands of miles away, and they'll have separate lives from now on. It feels right, but even the right things can take a while to come to terms with. Sometimes _especially_ the right things.

"Thank you," Lucifer whispers in his ear. "I wouldn't have this without you, you know."

"You'd have found your way there one way or another," Sam promises him. "But I am glad that I got to be a part of it."

Lucifer's breakthrough feels to Sam like inevitability enacted by this particular streak of good luck and coincidence—and while the end doesn't justify the means, it does help to make things okay right here and now, and that counts for a hell of a lot.

It's a relief to be back on the right foot with everyone, but it doesn't make withdrawal any prettier. Sam shakes and sweats and worries his way through long sleepless days and nights, snaps at people too quickly, turns his anger on himself just as fast.

As promised, Meg gets him into a good residential place, and on the eve of his departure they all have a huge packing day. Cas and Dean are moving into their new place, and since neither of them have much in the way of anything Meg's donated some old furniture and sheets and other basics that her too-large house has too many of. Meg and Gabriel are finalising their move as well, still carting boxes across. Last to go is a lot of Meg's kitchen equipment. _Once it's moved_, she'd argued, _we don't live here anymore. A place where you have to order takeout for every meal isn't a home_. Lucifer's gone through all his art supplies, taking his a small selection of his favourite things with him, letting Meg pick over the rest before either chucking the remainder or adding it to the vast pile of garage-saleable gear that's heaped up in the now freshly dusted front room.

Sam's gathering his bag of essentials to take to rehab with him when Lucifer comes in with a small canvas in his hand. He holds it out wordlessly, and Sam knows immediately what it is. Browns and reds and blue-blacks are brushed into the shape of Sam's own face—the face of the Sam Winchester who'd come here all those months ago to sit for a portrait, just to see what it was like. The picture seems to be of someone completely different to Sam as he knows himself to be now; the boy in it looks so definite, so unwaveringly sure of his beliefs and his morals. Sam wonders how much of that came from Lucifer's perception of him and how much was actually written on his face once upon a time.

"Are you sure?" Sam asks as he takes the painting, runs careful fingers around its edges.

"Very much so," Lucifer replies, like he's not handing the first painting he ever made of Sam over to the person who stole his finest work and exchanged it for drug money. Like he still believes that the virtues of the man he painted onto this little canvas exist somewhere inside the faulty addict before him.

Sam's going to put the picture up and look at it every day until he becomes a person Lucifer could rightly entrust this artwork to; a person the man in the painting wouldn't be embarrassed to see in a mirror.

Sam calls Sarah to let her know that he'll be out of action for a while. He's glad to hear her voice, encouraged by the way she seems to be pleased to hear from him too. He tells her he'd like to see her again once he's back, but he understands if she doesn't want to see him. He's halfway through constructing some convoluted escape clause to ensure she has an easy way out of the conversation when she tells him to stop, to just listen to her for a minute.

"Look," she says, "I could see when we first met that you'd been through a lot without you having to tell me. I lost my mother not so long ago, and I just receded, closed myself off and hid away in this nice warm shell. Losing people knocks you around, I can understand that much. You've obviously gone about the whole coping process in a different way than I did, but the end result is the same in some ways—both of us isolating ourselves from the rest of our lives. Now you're putting in the hard yards to repair that, and I think that's nothing to be ashamed of. I'd like to come and visit you, actually, if that's possible, and if it's something you'd like.

"So yeah, if I wanted someone without complications then maybe I should go on my next date with someone else—but that isn't what I want, and I can't promise to be without complications myself. So," Sarah pauses, "I'm prepared to help bear yours if you'll bear with me and mine."

When the call is finished Sam falls back onto his bed and tries to come to terms with the burst of optimism that charges through him. The buzz that Sarah gives him is not the same as the feelings he'd had for Lucifer, just as his feelings for Lucifer hadn't been recycled from his love for Jess. It hasn't feel like he's merely been shifting focus, rebounding from one person to the next; no, each time he falls for someone it's individual and brand new, and that newness alone gives him hope for a future that really isn't stained by the past. He laughs at himself just thinking about what Dean would say if he could hear these thoughts, but Sam's not about to shoot down a rare moment of elation, chick flick or otherwise.

Sam's heard it said that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Granted, his younger years were all spent stuck in a place he couldn't stand, doing little aside from furiously planning all the things he'd do once he got away, and he's never considered that time to be a great example of living—but knowing what he knows now about how his idealistic plans tend to work out, Sam will admit that there's truth in the proverb.

Life is the people you meet by chance in the most random or unexpected of places, and all the other accidents and chain reactions triggered along the way. It's the patterns that fall together on the canvas while you're trying to fashion what you've imagined in your head—sometimes it's realism, but others it's impressionism, abstraction, even sculpture or collage. Hell, maybe it's postmodernism and the whole idea is to set fire to the page. Point is, you don't necessarily get to decide which form it takes; you just have to work with it as it comes at you, try to figure it all out as you go—because life at its _most_ potent, Sam concludes, is what happens between losing your way and finding it again.

THE END


End file.
